Tanzanian Association Oslo

ANALYSIS: If trusted leaders

can steal so much,

Tanzania can’t develop

ALOYCE MENDA
Dar es Salaam

ARMED robbery, burglary, and pick-pocketing incidents in Tanzania have always been viewed as terrible occurrences, thus decent Tanzanians hardly want to be associated with people who engage in such vices. While the three-mentioned problems touch every part of Tanzania as the media often indicate in their reports, a more sinister problem, grand corruption, lurks, but apparently seems to be less loathed.

While no armed robber or a gang of armed robbers has ever made away with billions of shillings or dollars in any operations in Tanzania, history has shown that an individual or ’a bunch of Tanzanian politicians, government bureaucrats and those who work for their interest can toy with billions of shillings or dollars at the expense of the common people in the street and development in general.

The sad aspect is that those who wreck the economy of our nation and loot the treasuries at the central and local government levels often get support from religious and spiritual leaders who are supposed to shun evil acts and discourage perpetration of ungodly acts.

The dimension and strategies that Tanzanian politicians use to amass wealth seem unparalleled in the world because the politicians always lay a claim to immunity and often find a way to make their dark side look normal when people suspect them.

Open corruption and reckless exhibition of stolen wealth among and by Tanzanian politicians and government bureaucrats have shown that armed robbers, burglars, and pickpockets are like saints, because none of these dangerous groups of people have once got away with ’really big money’ like our politicians, government bureaucrats and their secret associates do.

Tanzanian politicians and government officials particularly those within the financial sector loot the central and local governments; yet our priests, imams, pastors, and secular priests accord them respect at places of worship and give them the impression that they are right to be in key positions.

Today the former governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania, Daudi Ballali, is under the microscope of the senior state crime-busters and his ordeal has attracted attention worldwide.

Recently, President Jakaya Kikwete, formally sacked the long-beleaguered governor, after a special audit on the central bank implicated him in massive funds embezzlement and outright theft.

The State House Chief Secretary, Philemon Luhanjo, announced on January 09, this year that the president had terminated Ballali’s services with effect from January 08 - several months before his second term of office was due to expire later in the year. Luhanjo conceded that Ballali had indeed tendered his own letter of resignation to the president mid-last month, but emphasized that this letter had been rendered null and void by President Kikwete’s decision to sack him formally.

The president has replaced Ballali with Prof. Benno Ndulu, who was first Deputy Governor of the Central Bank.

Being the most highly paid government official below the level of prime pinister, Ballali was expected to show a different and an ideal approach devoid of ungodly clandestine and selfish ventures in Tanzania. But instead, Ballali colluded with 22 fake companies to loot 133bn/- from the Central Bank’s external payments arrears (EPA) account during 2005/06. The salary of the 5th governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania was $ 25,000 a month, yet he could not control his greed.

’’After going through the report of the Controller and Auditor-General (CAG) and the external auditor (Massawe Ernst & Young), the president was saddened and angered by the deliberate breach of law, regulations and procedure in the administration of the external payment arrears account at the Central Bank,’’ said the chief secretary.

Apart from removing Ballali, President Kikwete ordered the Central Bank’s Board of Directors to immediately convene, review the audit report, and take appropriate disciplinary action against all officials found to have colluded in the dubious payments, amounting to over 133bn/- in 2005 alone.

According to Luhanjo, the president has also instructed the Central Bank to immediately suspend all payments from the EPA account until further notice.

The heart-renting news about the involvement of such a highly placed government bureaucrat reduces the hope that the masses have for a better country that learned government officials are expected to build when they have the chance to be at the helm of affairs. The news also signals that high-level scholars can be as guilty as illiterates in doing damages to the nation.

When highly paid bureaucrats like the Central Bank governor are no exemption in the darkness that has beclouded the progress of Tanzania, the way forward or Vision 2025 National Plan becomes a mere rhetorical deceit which, consequently, will add more to the failure of the country, for the country will continue to bog down in its self-made pitfalls instead of overcoming its numerous problems.

Corrupt Tanzanian politicians and bureaucrats at national and local government levels should have a change of heart. People’s expectation is a well-polished Tanzania with pragmatic approaches to speeding up the pace of development that would earn the country respect and recognition. Tanzania cannot develop when the trusted leaders are greedy and corrupt.