Tanzania sacks about 10,000 civil servants with faked certificates

Cheating while applying for the positions in government ministries, agencies, local government has been increasingly discovered to be alarming in Tanzania, an aspect that the government has now decided to sack its 9,932 servants without mercy. The government has fired nearly 10,000 civil servants after discovering that they had phony academic documents, giving a 15-day ultimatum to voluntarily disappear from their workstations or face seven-year jail terms. The group includes 9,932 servants working in local government authorities (LGAs), public institutions, corporations and agencies. It was not immediately discovered how much the public officials have cost the government in wages, allowances, promotion, insurance and pensions, but the executive order issued yesterday in Dodoma put on ice their payments including this month’s salary. President John Magufuli, addressing the public shortly after receiving an evaluation report on academic qualifications for 435,000 public servants countrywide, said: “These people must immediately disappear and their vacant positions filled.” He described the embattled officials as “robbers and shoplifters” who do not deserve to be civil servants. The evaluation, which was commissioned by the President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance) and conducted by a 15-member team, was a follow-up exercise after a nationwide crackdown on ghost workers that nabbed 19,706. According to the President, the removal of the ghost workers saved the government 19.8bn/- per month or 238.2bn/- per year, paid as salaries to non-existent officials. “The government average monthly collection was 800bn/- yet salaries alone amounted to 700bn/- . . . 

 

President Magufuli insisting a ;point after having received the report

With this challenge, the country remained stagnant and therefore, the government decided to hunt for a lasting solution,” the President said. The report presented to the President by Public Service and Good Governance Minister, Angela Kairuki showed that 9,932 officials or 2.4 per cent of civil servants had fake academic documents - 1,538 (0.3 per cent) had controversial documents and 11,569 which is about 2.8 per cent having submitted incomplete documents, during the evaluation process. President Magufuli further ordered 1,538 officials whose academic documents appeared to be used by 3,076 officials, put on hold pending thorough investigations. “They should also not receive this month’s salary. This means there are more jobs for competent graduates and those who have been unemployed,” he said. He, however, cautioned officials conducting the evaluation exercise to ensure that only those with legitimate documents are retained. The Head of State urged those who know that they submitted fake documents to also voluntarily disappear from their working stations before May 15, this year. “Those who will be reluctant, we know their names. I will urge the police to arrest them and have them charged in the court of law. ” While it might sound as a favour to those who have been enjoying decent jobs, for them not to be arraigned, the President ordered all those who featured in the list of those with phony documents to be published in daily newspapers. “Let the public know all those who had fake documents. Some young men holding first-class qualifications were denied jobs by those holding fake documents.” The new job opportunities totals to 64,456 including the 52,456 posts announced by Minister Kairuki in the Parliament when presenting her ministry’s budget estimates for FY 2017/18.