AfricaPress-Tanzania: AHEAD of the 2020 General Election, the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) has been challenged to play fair to all candidates and plug all bribe loopholes.
The move would make the country to get quality leaders, who can push forward national interest as well as bring more tangible development in the country.
This was the key message delivered by senior government leaders yesterday, during the event to commission PCCB offices in Chamwino District, Dodoma region, with President John Magufuli being the guest of honour.
Speaking, the Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan apart from commending the bureau for the great job it has done in reducing the rate of corruption, noted that the bureau has to play fair and ensure justice prevails to all.
“Not all the PCCB officials are clean, some are not. During the just concluded CCM primaries for legislative seats some of the anti-graft officers were harassing aspirants especially the outgoing MPs, who are seeking the nominations for the coming election,” she noted.
According to her, the PCCB officials focused on the outgoing MPs instead of dealing with both new and those who were in the 11th Parliament.
Mama Samia was of the view that there are double standards in the operation of the bureau as it was observed during the CCM primaries, calling for changes that would ensure fairness to all.
“Fairness is all that people would like to see from your duties,” she insisted.
Going forward, she challenged the bureau to continue defending poor citizens, who have been harassed by the rich and ending up losing their properties and assets.
“You are tasked to serve the poor, I’m impressed with the initiatives taken in Njombe and Iringa regions, the same spirit should be observed in all regions,” she said, reminding the anti-graft body to act tougher than before.
Present at the event, Speaker of the Parliament Job Ndugai apart from commending PCCB for their good job, said the bureau should work on correct information.
“We are encouraging the public to feed PCCB with information on bribery, but I would like to insist that the information to be shared would be true and factual,” he explained.
According to him, some people intentionally feed the anti-graft body with fake tips aiming at destroying other people’s image, noting that this has been a normal practice in some public offices.
Speaker Ndugai was seconding the remarks of Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, who asked Tanzanians across the country to cooperate with PCCB on curbing corruption as it delays development in the country.
“These are public offices that are open to all Tanzanians with information that would help the bureau net the suspects for legal procedures,” he said, maintaining that the government would continue to take appropriate actions to all who would take or give bribes.
Earlier, the PCCB Director General Brig Gen John Mbungo said the bureau was in need of more own offices in six regions and more than 50 districts.
“Right now we have offices in 22 regions out of 28 regions of Tanzania, so we need to build more offices in the districts that we don’t have, this would improve efficiency and save cost,” he said.
