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Time for Kikwete to Slay Graft Monster

A decisive step may be reached in the next few days in dealing with one of the major scams that have tarnished the image of the Kikwete administration.

This follows President Jakaya Kikwete’s assurance on Monday that he will soon make a decision on the notorious External Payments Arrears (EPA) scandal in which some 22 companies were fraudulently paid Sh133 billion through the Bank of Tanzania.

He spoke after receiving a report from a task force he appointed early in the year to investigate and immediately recover the looted billions. The President’s assurance could not have come sooner as the people were becoming sceptical and questioning his administration’s real commitment to fighting graft in high places.

Queries have been raised in several quarters on the very decision by the President to form the task force, after going through a cogent report compiled by an international audit firm, Ernst & Young, which unearthed the monstrous rip-off. The report was handed to the Head of State on January 7.

The audit revealed that 22 companies received dubious payments from the BoT under the EPA scheme. They include 13 local companies, which pocketed Sh90,359,078,804 (about $78 million) using forged documents during the 2005/6 financial year.

This was so, yet the companies were not supposed to be paid even a single cent, Ernst & Young concluded in its report compiled after investigations spanning four months.

So when President Kikwete named the task force headed by Attorney-General Johnson Mwanyika, and which included Inspector-General of Police Said Mwema, and the Director-General of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), Dr Edward Hosea, some wondered what this new team would add to what the auditors had done.

We, therefore, hope that this is the turning point that all have been expecting. That action is going to be taken against all those named in the audit as having benefited from the massive theft. We have no reason to doubt that the President will act swiftly, as he has promised and help bring to justice all the culprits regardless of their social or political status.

The President must act soon to call the critics’ bluff and regain the confidence of the people and donors in his government. The ball is squarely in his court.

SOURCE: The Citizen Newspaper