THE ongoing problems in the country that involve recruiting of workers with fake certificates and payments to ghost workers have been increasing in recent years, due to the presence of irresponsible political and other leaders in offices, President John Magufuli said, yesterday.
The Head of State said political and
other leaders were the main root of the ongoing problems that have
forced the fifth phase government to take austerity measures in many
areas of the economy including conducting thorough certificates
verification exercise across the country.
President Magufuli was speaking after
receiving a report on public servants certificates verification. The
report was handed to the Head of State by the Minister of State in the
President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance), Ms
Angellah Kairuki.
The Head of State said leaders
contributed greatly to the problems since they failed to act on time and
allowed dishonest people to penetrate and appear on the government pay
list. “We (leaders) are the root cause of all these problems.
We created them because some of us were
not responsible in executing our duties,” said President Magufuli. He
said that some leaders failed to fulfil their responsibilities and
allowed ‘thieves’ to appear in the government payroll.
“I fail to understand, why some of the
leaders failed to identify these people, why did they wait for Minister
Joyce Ndalichako and Angellah Kairuki to reveal this,” he noted.
President Magufuli said he is not intending to discuss past events, but
he will not hesitate to mention the wrongdoings that have led the
country into big troubles and misuses of taxpayers’ money.
“I understand that it is not a good
thing to discuss past leaders, but at least we must discuss their
wrongdoings so that we can avoid committing same mistakes,” he said.
He added that the government has been
losing revenue at the Dar es Salaam Port, in the mining sector and other
potential areas due to poor leadership.
In December, 2015, it was revealed that a
network of corrupt public servants, politicians and businessmen were
directly responsible for the rot at the country’s main port.
A study by the World Bank estimated that
corruption cartels and general inefficiency at the Port were fleecing
government of revenue estimated at 345bn/- (157m US dollars) annually.
The situation forced President Magufuli
and Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa to conduct impromptu visits to the
Port. It was revealed that some officials had turned the port into a
cash cow, receiving millions of shillings in direct benefit and also
openly soliciting for contributions to turn a blind eye on the looting.
It was exposed that more than 2,700
containers were cleared without due taxes being collected; in the course
denying the government a reported 80 billion/- taxes.
Yesterday, the Head of State reiterated
that leaders were behind the ongoing problems in the country. However,
he assured the public that his government will stand firm to fight any
kind of criminality within its systems and make sure every ‘mwananchi’
is served as required.
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