Treasury Permanent Secretary Dr Servacius Likwelile
the fore, Treasury Permanent Secretary Dr Servacius Likwelile who was among
the top officials who signed the fee letter in 2012, yesterday came out
strongly, saying there was no loss of public money.
Dr Likwelile’s defence, which also echoed by Central Bank’s governor
Professor Benno Ndulu comes at the time of the further revelation of more
prominent names that were involved in brokering the deal.
Reacting to The Guardian, which contacted him to get his side of the story,
the Treasury PS said, “It is important to be clear on this: there is no
loss of USD 600 million, it’s about irregularities in the exercise by the
bank officials that has attracted the penalty and thus the award of USD 7
million to the government,” Dr Likwelile said.
The Guardian understand that the UK’s investigators didn’t claim that the
Tanzanian government lost money in this transaction, but revealed that
bribery might have been through a local front company to influence key
decisions makers within the treasury.
According to Serious Fraud Office documentary evidence presented to
British Judge, Brian Leveson the questionable payments paid to Harry
Kitilya and Dr Fratern Mboya of Enterprise Growth Market Advisors Limited
of Dar es Salaam might have also benefitted top officials in the finance
ministry who brokered the $600 million(Sh1.3 trillion) transaction.
It’s understood that after the sudden death of former Finance Minister Dr
William Mgimwa, President Kikwete appointed Madam Saada Mkuya to replace
him. But, at that time, the payments to the mysterious company have already
been done.
According to the evidence Dr Likwelile was amongst top ministry officials
who were actively involved in the controversial deal and final cut of USD 6
million as consultancy fees paid to EGMA in 2013. The deal kicked off in
April 2012 but was finalised in March 2013.
“When the letter of proposal for the transaction was first submitted in
February 2012, "Minister A" was the GOT Minister of Finance. In May 2012
Minister A was among a number of ministers dismissed from the government in
respect of corruption allegations,” the SFO document reads in part.
Who is being referred here as Minister A was in actual sense Mustafa Mkullo
was the minister for Finance until May 2012, when former President Kikwete
reshuffled his cabinet and appointed the late Dr Mgimwa as the new Finance
boss.
The SFO document further pointed out that Mkullo had wanted to conclud the
deal as fast as possible prior to his departure in May 2012 but could not
manage which then meant that his successor, Dr Mgimwa took over the role as
key Treasury architect backed by another top official and later on Dr
Likwelile.
Sugarcoating and pushing the whole deal from Stanbic Bank was Miss Tanzania
1996 Shose Senare then working as Head of Corporate and Investment Banking
backed by her Managing Director, Bashar Awale who started with minister and
Likwelile but later ended with Mgimwa and Likwelile.
Senare was so powerful that in 2012, she was included on the official
delegation of the government going for an International Monetary Fund and
World Bank meeting in Washington.
“During April 2012 SS (Senare) attended a spring IMF meeting as part of the
GOT's delegation. There she met Harry Kitilya in his GOT capacity as
"Commissioner for Tax". In reporting back to colleagues she explained that
Kitilya had introduced her to two Governors of other African central banks
(both ex-commissioners themselves) proclaiming that we (i.e. the bank)
specialize in raising funds for governments and how good the Bank was,” the
SFO document which is a result of interrogating all the key actors except
Senare who resigned from her position to escape the questioning in 2013.
Senare’s masterly so impressed his local boss, Awale and London based
Florian Von Hartig who was Standard Bank's Head of Global Debt Capital
Markets that at one point in time, she was named as running a one man show.
Senare was instrumental in reviving the deal which started in 2011 but
nearly collapsed because there was no offer of a fee for consultancy to
public officials.”A further letter of proposal dated 20th February 2012 was
sent to the Ministry of Finance. This joint Standard Bank and Stanbic
Tanzania proposal outlined a now $550 million sovereign private placement
but the bank fee remained as per the October 2011 proposal at 1.4 percent,”
the SFO document said.
In his 25th February 2012 reply to Bashir Awale from the minister it
indicated that the government was "willing to participate in the deal". The
letter invited BA to immediate discussions with the MOF technical staff
with a hope of concluding the deal by April 2012, the SFO said.
Awale was deported last month by the government after he was accused of
hiring international hackers in order to temper with the general election
tallying process—the charges he vehemently denied.
“By email on the same day, Shose Senare announced to Florian Von Hartig and
others that the proposal had been accepted by the minister and continued:
both Bashir and I have been lobbying both yesterday and full day today to
win this mandate. Please note that in this proposal Standard Bank Group
will not be putting any balance sheet nor are we taking any risk, we pocket
1.4 percent arrangement fees being USD 7,700,000 (over 15bn/-).
Contacted to comment on the saga, Bank of Tanzania Governor, Prof Benno
Ndulu also maintained that so far the government has lost no money because
of the London’s court ruling which offered a USD 7 million (15bn/-)
compensation.
Prof Ndulu was particularly asked by this paper to respond to measures
taken by the Central Bank so far to reign in Stanbic Bank Tanzania Limited
which has been embroiled in two major corruption scandals this year.
“Regulatory actions related to Tegeta Escrow will be reported in the
government’s implementation report of Bunge resolutions. On the matter
related to private placement in London, it is BoT’s regulatory action that
SFO relied upon for its prosecution, SFO has interacted with BoT on this
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