Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRESIDENT Dr Hussein Mwinyi’s war against corruption knows no bounds after he sacked three top military officers on Monday for abuse of office.
The sacked officers include the Jeshi la Kujenga Uchumi (JKU) Commander Colonel Ali Mtumweni Hamad, Head of Prisons Ali Abdallah Ali, and Commodore Hassan Mussa Mzee of KMKM.
Moreover, President Mwinyi has also ordered the suspension of accountants and data entry clerks pending legal measures.
President Mwinyi made the decision after receiving a report of the committee formed to probe allegations that there were ghost workers and financial irregularities in the Zanzibar Special Forces.
The probe team was tasked to verify the number of officers and rates of payments within the forces.
Addressing the nation on Monday, President Mwinyi revealed that the report produced by the probe team shows that some officials were abusing their offices, embezzling public money and employing forgery tactics to verify some payments.
Dr Mwinyi said the probe team found that there were a total of 381 ghost workers who were receiving salaries every month. He said over 2.2bn/- was lost through paying salaries to the ghost workers.
“When the committee started investigation, some officers tried to use tricks to verify the payments, some were caught taking pictures of ordinary citizens, who they wanted to portray as employed military men,” he said.
Dr Mwinyi said the probe team established that in December alone at least 304.1m/- was paid as allowances to ghost workers, with over 1.8bn/- swindled between July and December, 2020.
President Mwinyi added that the committee also revealed that 12 retired officials continued to receive salaries, contrary to the country’s laws.
He said accountants and data entry clerks continued to record payments for 12 retired officers and a total of 44m/- was paid illegally.
However, Dr Mwinyi said that after interrogating two of the retired officials, at least 10.7m/- was recovered and deposited to the government account.
Moreover, the probe team revealed that the accountants swindled a total of 117.7m/- through paying officials who were already sacked from jobs.
“The accountants and data entry clerks continued to float payments to workers who were already sacked, therefore they managed to get over 117m/- through that illegal means,” he noted.
He added: “I have been informed that procedures for taking legal measures against the accused are already in course,” On officers’ ration allowances, President Mwinyi said it was revealed the money was not paid as required for a long time and that the officers were not given pay slips.
He said each officer was supposed to be paid 70,000/- . He said the report shows that 701 JKU officers’ money was spent contrary to the procedures.
According to Dr Mwinyi, at least 539.7m/-, meant for JKU officers allowances, ended up in the few officers’ pockets.
“Some officers said that they received pay slips for the first time after the probe team had started the verification exercise,” he said.
