House team reacts to donor calls for aid 'refund'

President Jakaya Kikwete’s government is in the soup over the theft and waste of Sh644m through illegal billing. PHOTO | FILE 

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.