24 DEDs demoted and 8 others arraigned in court

IN a bid to ensure workers’ accountability in various district councils in the country, the government has demoted 24 District Executive Directors (DEDs) and 8 others arraigned in court and other 24 have been reprimanded under workers’ disciplinary codes of actions since 2006 up to December 2012, the Parliament was told yesterday. The deputy Minister for Local government and Regional Administration Agrey Mwanri said that, among the 24 demoted district executives, one of them had his salary lowered adding that, the move is a deterrent to others who are fond of sabotaging government’s properties. The deputy minister was responding a question earlier asked by Ramadhani Haji Saheh (CCM) who wanted to know what actions has the government taken so far to the district executives who have been found responsible for the loss of money set aside for the intended development projects within their districts. Either, apart from the disciplinary actions so far taken against high ranking district officers, the government has also held 1,452 other workers accountable with various disciplinary actions for having found them guilty of violation of various workers’ rules and regulations under public service. Coupled by the increasing phenomenon, the government has taken various steps in order to prevent the habit. However, he said this is together with the legal actions against the offenders who are directly or indirectly found closely to be associated in one way or another. In order to strengthen the whole financial systems in line to curb the rampant theft which has been discovered in various district councils in the country, the government has introduced a system whereby all internal auditors will now be directly reporting to the government Chief internal Auditor. The deputy minister also noted that, the government has established the use of international standards in the preparations of the financial accounting systems, others are the establishment of a system which ensure financial supervision commonly known as EPICOR which is intended to curb the increased theft of money in district councils. Either he noted that, the government is insisting care to b e observed by auditors when carrying out their duties to look at the value of the money used for the various intended development targets for the district councils. He further noted that, through these steps, the government has been able to reform financial management systems in most district councils in the country, and this has been approved by the office of the Controller Accounts General (CAG) of 20-11/12 whereby clean audit certificates have increased from 72 in 2010/11 to 104. The unsatisfactory certificates were reduced from 5 in 2010/11 to zero and there was one bad certificate as approved by the CAG office in 2011/12. He has therefore issued a concern to councilors to continue maintaining a good relationship with the district executives to make sure that, they are all working in collaboration to ensure that government money and other public properties in the local government are well supervised. He further reminded them that, there are newly formed controlling systems of curbing with theft, and if used effectively would enable their council offices to maintain an up to date accounting record systems.