Five TASAF officials suspended over ineligible households

LUDOVICK KAZOKA

THE Minister of State in the President’s Office, Public Service Management and Good Governance, Ms Angellah Kairuki, has ordered the suspension of five top officials of Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), after a verification exercise unearthed a total of 55,692 ineligible TASAF’s scheme households.

She also directed the suspension of 106 Community Based Conditional Cash Transfer (CBCCT) Monitoring and Consultative officials, who were responsible to register the ineligible beneficiaries of the TASAF-run CBCCT scheme in the municipalities.

Ms Kairuki told a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the government had saved 6.4bn/- after scrapping 42,034 ineligible CBCCT households (beneficiaries) between January in 2014 and September in 2016.

“I also direct TASAF to conduct investigations on the officials to establish their involvement in the matter so that action will be taken against them. The investigations should be completed within one month from today,” said the minister.

Ms Kairuki noted that the fund’s senior officials including the Director of Coordination, Mr Alphonse Kyariga and Coordination Manager, Ms Tunu Munthali, who were responsible to supervise the CBCCT consultative and monitoring officials in municipalities while registering poor households for the scheme.

“I have consulted Minister of State in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government, Mr George Simbachawene, who has already directed the suspension of TASAF district coordinators involved in the matter,” explained the minister.

Ms Kairuki pointed out that the verification, which started in January, this year, discovered that 13,898 households that benefited from the CBCCT scheme were no longer existing while households that were actually not poor numbered 13,468. Also, 17,746 households did not show up in the verification exercise.

She mentioned other ineligible beneficiaries removed after the verification as village CBCCT committees’ members (4,352), while households that moved to the project areas before the scheme commenced totalled 6,228.

Ms Kairuki pointed out that since the exercise to remove ineligible households in CBCCT scheme was sustainable, the government will announce again the amount saved from the exercise in January 2017.

“The actual amount saved from the exercise between October, 2016 and January 2017 might change after completion of the payment to the eligible households in the CBCCT scheme,” she said.

According to the minister, eligible households in the CBCCT scheme would from now have to submit two identification cards to get paid, pointing out the identification cards as voter card or citizen identification card.

“This is to ensure the payment is made to the right beneficiaries. District Executive Directors (DEDs) will supervise the exercise of paying the poor households,” she concluded