MPs fail to decide on escrow

Speaker of the National Assembly Anne Makinda leads a procession of Parliament officials out of the debating chamber yesterday after opposition members protested the way decisions on resolutions to discipline government officials were being made. Photo | Emmanuel Herman 

In Summary

• Opposition members interrupted the session yesterday when they felt that the Speaker and members from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi were against any decisions of making public officials implicated in the escrow account scandal accountable.

Dar and Dodoma. In a dramatic turn of events, Parliament yesterday put the breaks on itself and failed to take stern actions against public officials implicated in the Tegeta escrow account.

The Speaker, Ms Anne Makinda, seemed to be cautious when Parliament was supposed to make decisions on top government officials implicated in the scandal.

After the protracted debate, in which some CCM MPs protected officials implicated in the scam,  opposition MPs, led by the Official Leader of the Opposition, Mr Freeman Mbowe, stood, paralysing Parliament activities.

The opposition MPs switched on all their microphones and shouted whenever another member tried to speak. This happened at around 10.36pm, leaving the Speaker dumbfounded for some time.  

Earlier, Ms Makinda had extended the session, saying she would not suspend it until all 12 resolutions by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) were debated and agreed upon.

But when Parliament reached the point of making decisions on key government officials who have been implicated in the scandal by the PAC and the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), the MPs from the ruling party seemed to be against any decision which would make the official accountable.

This forced Mr Mbowe to rally his members into rejecting the move, standing and shouting for about 15 minutes. That forced Ms Makinda to adjourn the session before the all the resolutions were agreed upon.

Ms  Makinda warned the MPs when debating what action should be taken on the permanent secretary in the  ministry of Energy and Minerals,  Mr Eliachim Maswi, against making recommendations that would put the Legislature at odds with the Executive.

That made the MPs lenient to the implicated officials, proposing, for instance, that issues concerning the permanent secretary be forwarded to his appointing authority for action.

But Parliament had earlier also cleared Energy deputy minister Stephen Masele on the grounds that he had nothing to do with the escrow scandal.

But earlier Parliament directed the government to investigate criminal dealings by the owner of the Pan African Power Solutions (PAP), Habinder Sigh Sethi, and take legal action against him over fraudulent withdrawal of billions of shillings  from the Tegeta Escrow Account.

Parliament agreed with PAC and CAG findings that PAP was not the legal owner of IPTL shares as it claims because it did not follow procedures in purchasing the stake.

The government’s spirited efforts to reject a PAC recommendation to dissolve the board of directors of the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) flopped after MPs stressed that the board failed to stop the illegal funds withdrawal from the escrow account.

Parliament implicated the board  in aiding PAP to withdraw money from the escrow account money without following procedures.

The MPs recommended that the government investigate the Tanesco board and take actions against all members who are found to have involved in mismanaging escrow money.

Parliament also resolved that the government freeze accounts of all people who received money from Mr James Rugemalila of VIP Engineering on realisation that the money paid to them was fraudulently withdrawn from the escrow account, part of which has been proved to be public money.

Parliament also asked the government to review all power contracts entered by Tanesco and independent power producers. They made the resolution after noting that many of the contracts were against the state-owned company which pay high capacity charges of around Sh3 billion monthly for each contract.

The resolutions were reached during the climax of  the debate on the PAC report on the withdrawal of more than Sh200 billion from the escrow account established in 2006 following a dispute over capacity charges between Tanesco and Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL).

The two companied entered into a power purchase agreement, but later Tanesco disputed the capacity charges on the grounds that IPTL cheated on costs of investments.

On public officials who received the money, Parliament directed the government to investigate them and take appropriate actions against them because they  acted against the Code of Public Ethics.

Parliament also asked the Bank of Tanzania and other concerned organs to investigate and take actions against Mkombozi Commercial Bank, Stanbic and all banks involved in the transactions of money withdrawn from the escrow account.

They said the transactions amounted to money laundering.

Reported by Katare Mbashiru (Dodoma), Frank Kimboy, Mkinga Mkinga and Peter Nyanje (Dar)