PIUS RUGONZIBWA IN MWANZA
Mwanza Regional Commissioner (RC), Mr John Mongela, told reporters here during a familiarisation meeting with the media operating in the city that the new exercise would be carried out in a week’s time.
The verification will include all the staff in the regional secretariat and local governments, who will be required to appear physically with passport size photographs and whose finger prints would be examined.
He said the move comes following information from security agencies that there was a possibility of other ghost workers. “The team will work on such information and will verify payrolls where all the staff will be required to sign their pay slips and this will also include those in the academic institutions for various academic programmes,” he said.
Mr Mongela said about 129 ghost workers have been deleted from the payroll and that punitive action would be taken against people behind the scandal. the education department was reported having many ghost workers with reports saying some of the teachers used to report on duty in their first appointment and shortly run away for other ventures without issuing official notice.
Mr Mongela urged the media to help him in uncovering unethical civil servants, cautioning that journalists should also adhere to their code of conduct. He said he is concerned with the state of security in Mwanza Region since he reported on duty, warning that he was aware of some few criminals threatening peace in the region.
He challenged the media to play a big role in maintaining peace since they are better placed to receive information on different crimes being committed in the society. He also announced on the formation of regional forums that will be tasked to discuss various developmental ideas and propose better ways on how they could be implemented.
On the availability of timely and authentic information, Mr Mongela challenged the designated officials in the region to be ready to provide reliable information to the media, promising maximum cooperation in providing detailed information on all policy issues.
“While the media here must refrain from reporting malicious and unbalanced stories, may I call on the designated officials, particularly the information officers, to give authentic and authoritative information to the media,” he stressed.
However, members of the media had a number of concerns, including the present scenario on uncoordinated flow of information from government officers as well as some being reluctant to reveal data on the investigated matter.
They were irked by the practice where some few members of the media are ‘awarded’ tenders of inviting some media outlets to the events on their own wishes and preferences
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