By The Citizen Reporter
In Summary
- Speaking to The Citizen in an interview yesterday Mr Mohammed (Ole-CUF) said embezzlement in local governments has reached a critical stage and serious steps must be taken
Dar es Salaam. Donors’ demand
that the money they gave in aid of the Local Governments Reform Project
be returned to them shows how serious the issue of public funds
mismanagement in the district councils is, the chairman of the Local
Governments Accounts Committee, Rajab Mbarouk Mohammed has said.
Speaking to The Citizen in an interview
yesterday Mr Mohammed (Ole-CUF) said embezzlement in local governments
has reached a critical stage and serious steps must be taken to check
wanton pilferage of public funds.
And the main problem, he notes, is that there is
no political will to deal with the problem, despite the controller and
auditor general (CAG) reports indicating that billions of shillings are
lost every year due to misappropriation.
“Everyone complains about rampant theft of funds
in local governments. The President is complaining about it, the Prime
Minister is complaining, the minister responsible is complaining about
it."
"This is the main problem and our efforts to
pressure the government to take stern disciplinary measures against
known culprits have been in vain,” Mr Mohammed noted.
He added: “I understand donors’ concerns… we share
them; it is high time something was done. Why is it that no development
project is implemented in local governments without problems?”
His reaction comes only days after six donor
countries demanded that the government gives back more than Sh600
million stolen by officials under the Local Government Reform Programme
(LGRP) Phase II.
Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Japan
and Germany have jointly written to the ministry of Finance asking for
the refund.
In total, these countries donated 16 million euros
(nearly Sh35bn) from 2009 to 2012 to fund the roll-out of the second
phase of the five-year programme, which has a budget of Sh66.6 billion.
They say the money was pilfered by corrupt
government officials charged with implementing LGRP II through paying
themselves per diems and funding the purchase of expensive vehicles.
Mr Mohammed yesterday said the problem with donor
funds started with the LGRP I, when countries funding the programme
withheld further aid because of misuse of vehicles.
“Donors gave 60 vehicles for an internal audit
project under LGRP I, but these were misused and did not serve the
purpose and donors stopped giving any more vehicles as they had planned.
In all, about 160 vehicles were in the pipeline,” Mr Mohammed noted.
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