PRESIDENT SAMIA SAYS GOVT WOULD NOT RELENT IN ANTI-GRAFT FIGHT

BY GRACE MACHA IN ARUSHA

President Samia Suluhu Hassan has put on notice individuals behind haemorrhage of public resources.

To begin with,the national anti-graft agency was being empowered with skilled staff and technology to deal firmly with runaway corruption.

The laws that established the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) have also been amended to make them effective enough in  the fight.

At the same time, the Head of State made it clear that Africa was not and would not be a safe haven for people who plundered the continent's resources.

President Samia, who was speaking in Arusha early this week (Tuesday)   at the climax of the African Anti-Corruption Day, called for joint efforts among countries to tame the vice.

According to her, high level corruption has not only impacted the economies of many countries in Africa but fueled cross border crimes.

The Tanzanian leader implored the African countries to jointly fight corruption through exchange of information and culprits.

"The corrupt moguls in Africa must be apprehended and punished. They should not get away easily", she pointed out.

Addressing delegates from across the continent at the Arusha International Conference Centre AICC), President Samia rooted for recovery of stolen assets.

Recovery of money stolen from the continent and stashed in the foreign banks abroad, was one of the options to tame grand corruption.

"The stolen assets should be seized and repatriated back to their original countries", she said.

The Head of State regretted that corruption has infiltrated into the Judiciary and the education sector in Tanzania.

She said the option (repatriation of stolen assets) has been effective in that the government has managed  to recover billions of shillings which had been stolen.

President Samia said Tanzania was fully supportive of the African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption that was signed exactly 20 years ago.

The country signed the Convention in November 2003, a few months after it was unveiled in Maputo. Later it ratified the pact, becoming one of the 48 AU states to have ratified it.

Tanzania's readiness to host the  only institution created to spearhead anti-graft fighting on the basis of the Convention was another sign of the country's commitment.

The African Union Advisory Board Against Corruption (AU-ABC) has its offices right at the AICC, a few metres from there President Hassan spoke to hundreds of delegates.

The main mandate of the Board which established itself here about 10 years ago is to promote and encourage the adoption of measures and actions of state parties to tame corruption.

In appreciation of its role in the continental fight against graft, the Tanzania government would provide a new permanent home to the Board  outside the rented AICC space.

Turning to graft in Tanzania, President Samia said the battle against the menace has been multi-pronged, roping in various institutions.

These include the Controller and Audit General's (CAG) Office, the public procurement agencies and the Ethics Secretariat, among others.

The private sector and the civil society organizations (CSOs), good governance bodies and some units in the Judiciary have not been left  out.

"There is now enhanced transparency in the public funds expenditure especially in the tender processes", the President further explained.

At the same time, most of the tender systems, tax payments and business registrations have been massively digitalized, plugging holes in likely bribes.

Speaking at the event, the AU-ABC Vice Chair Pascal Antonio Joachim called on the seven AU member countries which have not ratified the anti-corruption Convention to do so.

He also called on the scholars and the CSO fraternity to support the continental body (AU) in taming corruption which is blamed on some of the woes haunting Africa.

According to Mr. Joachim, Tanzania has always been supportive to the Board in that it submitted reports on its performance in the fight against corruption.

The country has, however, not fared very well in the fight, according to Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index in which it (Tanzania) scored 38 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean").

When ranked by score, Tanzania emerged 94th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector.