Foreign Affairs minister Bernard Membe
By Athumani Mtulya,The Citizen Reporter
IN SUMMARY
- Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister cites the IPTL scandal as an example of the level of corruption in the country and its impact on the economy
- Tanzania is among the 14 most corrupt countries in the world, according to the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer. About 56 per cent of those interviewed admitted to having paid a bribe to one or more government and non-governmental institutions that include political parties.
Dar es Salaam. Corruption has reached alarming levels and is tarnishing the country’s image, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe said yesterday.
Addressing the 1st Voice of Social Sciences International Conference 2014 organised by the College of Social Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam, Mr Membe said corruption should be addressed as a matter of urgency and challenged academicians to research on its impact in society.
“There are other challenges such as poverty and problems in education and health, but corruption is by far the most serious, and pretending that it doesn’t exist is an equally serious problem,” he said.
He made the remarks a day after it was revealed that senior government officials were involved in the irregular payment of tens of billions of shillings to a firm which claimed to have acquired 70 per cent of Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL).
Mr Membe cited the IPTL scandal as an example of the level of corruption in the country and its impact on the economy.
He said donor countries had withheld budget support totalling nearly Sh1 trillion for the current financial year pending the release of the Controller and Auditor General’s report on the scam.
Now that the CAG’s report is out, Mr Membe said, the Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation ministry would meet with the donor community today to discuss the way forward.
“We, as the government, have been striving to be transparent. The report by the CAG is out and appropriate measures will be taken against those found to be culpable,” Mr Membe told journalists on the sidelines of the meeting.
Mr Membe advised Tanzanians to go for “clean and incorruptible” leaders who would be tough on corruption.
Speaking at the meeting earlier, Prof Sam Maghimbi echoed Mr Membe’s remarks, saying corruption was crippling the economy.
He said only four out of every 10 shillings set aside for development were spent as planned with the rest ending up in the pockets of corrupt public officials and their collaborators.
Prof Maghimbi denied that scholars had turned a blind eye to corruption, but added that most of them chose not to be vocal because they feared for their lives.
“You can ask other professors and scholars who are here (he names some of them)…we are scared. When you conduct an independent research, you will be accused of taking sides. Some will go out of their way to silence you. Many of those accused of grand corruption are very powerful individuals,” he said.
This is the question of supply and demand. It is as simple as that. Remove demand for corruption and you will see no corruption. How can you do that? Ask those who created it. Remember those days when it was difficult to get a telephone line.People were prepared to pay a lot of money just to get a line. If there is efficiency, if things are done quickly and properly within a time frame there should be no problem. A simple task takes a lot of time but to fast forward you have to give some incentive. I remember years ago if something is not done within three days you have to mention in writing and take action.You will rarely see the boss out of office.If he is not there his deputy will do routine job.
By looking at the actions of our government leaders especially our bunge
I don't think our leaders want to remove corruption.For once they are
the beneficiary of it.That is why the government (Bunge la katiba) removed the sections of
the constitution which deals with Good conduct for public servants.If
they pay for that constitution to pass,then corruption will
always be there.
To me eradicating corruption doesn't need someone with PhD or with a lot of research skills to research on the so called the impact of the corruption to Tanzanian...,what Mh Membe has just said is a proposal for another mode of civilized corruption"Giving money to academician to research on impact of corruption" the impact of the corruption in Tanzania is known to every one,,,even my kid at home knows this...I am afraid of the findings from these research will remain in papers,the proposal will go through a corrupted channel before the research being accepted to be funded,,the 10% and other things...wastage of money......our leaders have simple solutions for complex problems...here is my suggestion....Lets look at those corrupted officials....what do they afraid of...what do they like....
Naturally the strong fear takes away the weak one,this means that if you afraid of jumping or climbing a tree,or thorn fence,once the lion behind chasing you,for sure you will do all those without your knowledge.......to me if we are honest,and we want to eradicate the corruptions we need a strong leader,a clean one who can exert great fear to those corrupted one.Lets give Edward Lowassa Tanzania to clean up all these mess.
All along I thought that Tz was the least afflicted country in EAC by the scourge of corruption compared to Kenya and Uganda. But judging from what I have read lately, it seems the situation in Tz is equally bad and could even be worse. From the Radar deal now to the IPTL scandal to name but a few. It would look that the citizens of EAC are caught up in a corruption web which might destroy all them. What do we do collectively to solve this problem? It seems Mr. Membe is ready to offer clean and incorruptible leadership - why can't we support him?
What did Chinese do to fight this "disease"??
Indeed, this could be the right verdict of the Fourth Phase government!! Which is in fact the cumulative effect of previous phases! Should we go for the same party during the Fifth Phase?!
Mr. Membe's comment is wonderful and revealing: "clean and incorruptible"!! Because sometimes back we chose Mr. Clean, and it appears the last "adjective" - incorruptible, was not there!!
The corrupt practice CCM relies on maintaining its cling to power since the departure of Mwalimu is the main cause behind the high levels of corruption observed in the society of Tanzania and the Government mismanagement of national resources. A Government founded on political corruption like vote rigging is always incompetent and corrupt. Positions at different levels of decision making in such Government would be dominated by officials from the same tribe or region of the country. Such domination creates favourable conditions for the evolution of mafia like networks which involve political, Government and private sector officials behind the escalation corrupt practice in the Government delivery of service and management of national resources like it happened in this IPTL escrow case. Politicians and political parties which embrace corrupt practice in political elections always yield corrupt Governments and Government officials. Political parties and politicians who rely on donations from business people in their campaigning to win political elections would always corruption in society. A Government founded on political corruption is always dominated by ministers who are representatives of the ruling party in the Parliament, most them having won Parliament seats through corrupt practice. Any leader who come to power through corrupt practice (e.g. vote rigging) will always serve corrupt leadership aimed at achieving own interests and the interests of the political party he/she belongs in rather than the national interests he/she is supposed to serve. Escalation of corrupt practice in the CCM doing of business (like it was widely observed in the way CCM handled the new constitution writing) is therefore main culprit behind the escalation of corruption practices in our Government and society as a whole. Repetition of processes in the new Constitution writing in view of ensuring it is free of corrupt political interference and focused on building a corrupt free Tanzanian democracy, Government, society is the most important in the war against escalation of corruption in the country.
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The corrupt practice CCM relies on maintaining its cling to power since the departure of Mwalimu is the main cause behind the high levels of corruption observed in the society of Tanzania and the Government mismanagement of national resources. A Government founded on political corruption like vote rigging is always incompetent and corrupt. Positions at different levels of decision making in such Government would be dominated by officials from the same tribe or region of the country. Such domination creates favourable conditions for the evolution of mafia like networks which involve political, Government and private sector officials behind the escalation corrupt practice in the Government delivery of service and management of national resources like it happened in this IPTL escrow case. Politicians and political parties which embrace corrupt practice in political elections always yield corrupt Governments and Government officials. Political parties and politicians who rely on donations from business people in their campaigning to win political elections would always corruption in society. A Government founded on political corruption is always dominated by ministers who are representatives of the ruling party in the Parliament, most them having won Parliament seats through corrupt practice. Any leader who come to power through corrupt practice (e.g. vote rigging) will always serve corrupt leadership aimed at achieving own interests and the interests of the political party he/she belongs in rather than the national interests he/she is supposed to serve. Escalation of corrupt practice in the CCM doing of business (like it was widely observed in the way CCM handled the new constitution writing) is therefore main culprit behind the escalation of corruption practices in our Government and society as a whole. Repetition of processes in the new Constitution writing in view of ensuring it is free of corrupt political interference and focused on building a corrupt free Tanzanian democracy, Government, society is the most important in the war against escalation of corruption in the country.
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