Monday, December 16, 2013

Legislators linked to the misappropriation of government funds

THE Parliamentary Chairman of Local Accounts Committee (LAAC) has said that there are some legislators who are directly associated with the misappropriation of funds which are accounted for the development activities of the local government authorities in the country. Rajab .M. Mbarouk an MP for Ole (CUF) said this in Parliament on Tuesday this week when winding up the summary report for local government authorities as indicated in financial audit report of the Controller Accounts General (CAG) ending June 30th 2012 which he issued on Monday this week. When summarizing his report, Mbarouk noted that despite claims leveled against the executives of the local government authorities detailing their poor performance as stated in his report, there are some legislators who are directly concerned with the deterioration of pending projects initiated for the economic development  in  some district councils in the country. Elaborating on the issue, Mbarouk disclosed that, some legislators uses their capacity to get hold of some tenders announced for the development and once they get them, they virtually fail to fulfill certain requirements to ensure their better performance a result of which ended in loss of huge sums of government money. He said his committee members discovered there were some tenders as related with the purchase of certain equipment to be used may be for construction or supply of a commodity, after having been acquired by some legislators do not develop. LAAC’s report had discovered that, there are great losses of government money which have been misappropriated in various economic developments of the local government authorities in the country. Most of these losses were caused by not following the right procurement process and this was discovered in various cheatings as they are used while purchasing documents for use.  Among other misappropriations of funds as stated in LAAC’s report is the continued illegal disbursement of the salary payments on ghost workers which has become among the hard core problem which for many years has remained unsolved. The report noted that with the continued habit whose solution has never been found among the executives, moreover the progressive statistics does not indicate signs of eradicating the phenomenon which is growing at an alarming rate. Otherwise, he noted that workers who authorizes such payment rolls which contains names of ghost workers purporting to be retired civil servants in their system of payment rolls, should be taken to task and if possible legal measures should be imposed against them.  The report further says that, there is a tendency of the Minister of Local Government and Regional Administration of transferring some executives in local government authorities once they realized to have involved in various malpractices including corruption upon discovering such civil servants are quickly moved to other working places. Either in the report it is stated that some executives are promoted into higher ranking position something which has caused suspicion among committee members, despite of the fact that officials from the ministry have been defending the issue that is not happening once brought before the committee to testify. This is a proof that has brought the attention of the committee members to believe that the ministry responsible is staggering and not committed enough, the Chairman noted in his report and added that, the poor performance of the ministry is seen in some district councils which he mentioned as Mewanza, Mvomero, Kishapu, Kilindi, Bagamoyo, Same and Masasi. He further noted that, the government has been embracing the system to defend grand corruption workers who continues to practice mischief which wreck havoc the intended development of some district councils in the country. Winding up the report, the Chairman has suggested the parliament should advise the government to look at the professional capability of the appointed minister who are able to run the entire operational activities of the ministry of Local government and regional administration. According to the Chairman, he ids on the view of the fact that, an experienced minister is highly needed to run such a sensitive ministry like this one which serves almost 90 percent of the people in the country. In his appeal, the Chairman noted that, failure to commit his proposal, the government would continue losing huge sums of money which are diverted into the pockets of few greedy civil servants.

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