Latest revelation:
26 billion Tshs. payout
to Kagoda right before
2005 elections
-But poll was then postponed for avoidable reasons
THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam
MORE than 25.7bn/- was paid to Kagoda Agriculture Limited from the Bank of Tanzania’s external payment arrears (EPA) account just days before the 2005 general elections were initially scheduled to be held, THISDAY can now reveal.
Our investigations have established that the central bank released a total of 25,759,769,275.10/- to Kagoda on October 27, 2005 - a mere three days before the scheduled, countrywide polls on October 30.
The polls were, however, postponed to December 18 of the same year, following the sudden and untimely death of an opposition vice-presidential candidate.
According to latest THISDAY findings, the BoT payments disbursed to Kagoda on October 27, 2005 were in four separate installments and via different bank accounts within the city of Dar es Salaam.
Breakdown of the payments is as follows: 3,430,099,403.52/-; 2,715,297,863.12/-; 10,254,045,455.83/-; and 9,360,326,552.94/-.
One week later (November 3, 2005), the central bank made six more transfers of funds to the same company’s bank accounts, amounting to more than 8bn/-.
New documents seen by THISDAY reveal that the payments made by BoT to separate Kagoda accounts on November 3 were for 1,261,430,676.50/-; 1,261,430,676.50/-; 1,056,767,673.45/-; 2,323,540,330.27/-; 702,881,683.32/-; and 1,590,622,560.49/-.
About a month afterwards (December 5, 2005), Kagoda was yet again the beneficiary of hefty BoT disbursements amounting to over 800m/-.
The December 2005 payments were for 558,068,464.70/- and 267,137,210/-, respectively.
All these payments made by BoT to Kagoda occurred in the final days of the third phase government under ex-president Benjamin Mkapa, before the incumbent President Jakaya Kikwete came into office.
Our investigations have already revealed that at least six separate bank accounts opened at different CRDB Bank branches in Dar es Salaam were used by Kagoda to siphon more than 40bn/- from the EPA account.
The use of separate bank accounts maintained by the apparently shell company is understood to have been specifically designed to avoid raising the suspicion of authorities by spreading the huge sums of money around.
It has been established that the CRDB Bank accounts were opened at the same time and therefore have a similar sequence of numbers.
Following are the six bank account numbers maintained by Kagoda at different CRDB Bank branches within the city, which were used to steal the billions of shillings from the EPA account:
Holland House (A/C No. 01J1021795700), Azikiwe Branch (A/C No. 01J1021795701), Tower Branch (A/C No. 01J1021795702), Kijitonyama Branch (A/C No. 01J1021795703), Lumumba Branch (A/C No. 01J1021795704), and Vijana Branch (A/C No. 01J1021795705).
The Kagoda Company General Manager, John Kyomuhendo, is understood to have given written instructions to the central bank on several occasions to credit the above-listed bank accounts with large sums of money based on forged deeds of assignment documents.
Government officials say a fresh probe is already underway into the Kagoda company, but investigators are reportedly facing an uphill task in unraveling the mystery.
Influential personalities linked to the suspected shell company are believed to have so far managed to stifle any meaningful investigation into the firm, thanks to what is described as a complex web of financial power and political clout.
It remains to be seen if the new investigation will yield any tangible results, particularly after the previous inquiry by the EPA scandal probe team led by Attorney General Johnson Mwanyika apparently failed to expose the real Kagoda culprits.
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