Africa-Press – Tanzania. VICE-PRESIDENT Dr Philip Mpango has directed the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) to closely monitor and hold accountable public servants who solicit bribes from business people and investors.
Dr Mpango made the call here yesterday when launching a 850m/- cashew nut processing factory in Newala District.
He told the public servants across the country to be satisfied with their wages or quit government jobs and go for their other dealings.
“All civil servants, wherever they are in this country should be satisfied with their salaries and avoid asking for bribes from the investors,” he said, warning the public servants against acting as obstacles, instead help and grant full support to the investors.
Dr Mpango also directed Investment Minister, Mr Geofrey Mwambe to task regional and district commissioners to meet with investors and business people in their areas and discuss investment and trade issues in their respective areas.
He ordered the minister to work on the directive as soon as possible so that the RCs and DCs could attend to investors’ needs and address bureaucratic obstacles that hinder investments in the country.
He insisted that President Samia Suluhu Hassan has scrapped all nuisance taxes in the country in order to create a favorable investment environment, for business people and investors from in and outside the country.
Dr Mpango said that the investors and business people in the country are main drivers of the country’s economy, insisting that there was a need for the minister to oversee and ensure that government executives in the regions and districts serve them well and support them.
He said the RCs and DCs have to organize regular meetings with investors and business people in their regions to discuss with them about their investment plans so that the government could support them.
“Regional and district commissioners are the linkage between the government and private sector in the country, they are the ones responsible for the development of the private sector and for that matter, they have a role to play in ensuring a conducive environment for the investors and removing all obstacles facing them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the VP directed the ministry of agriculture to ensure that production of improved cashew nuts in the entire cashew farming regions add value to the nuts for the betterment of farmers and the nation at large.
He also directed the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe to connect the cashew-nut-based regions to Tanzania’s embassies abroad to facilitate expanded markets for the country’s cashew nuts.
“For us to get more foreign currency from production of cashew nuts, we must connect the regions involved in the farming of the nuts with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation to enable our farmers and industrialists access markets through our embassies in foreign countries,” he said.
Commenting, a businessman and owner of Prosperity Agro Industries Company Limited Mr Haroun Maarifa told the VP that lack of markets for the cashew nuts is one of the hitches facing many cashew nut processing factories.
Meanwhile, Dr Mpango has vowed to take stern measures against all government’s executive who engage in embezzlement of public funds provided by the government to improve social-economic infrastructures.
He told the government executives in Mtwara to make sure that the public funds are well spent.
“All the regional leaders should make sure the money brought here by the government for development purposes isn’t lost—even a single cent,” he said.
“I have started with the Director of Nanyumbu District—I have directed him to step down for misuse of public funds,” he said, noting that Nanyumbu District Executive Director, Hamis Dambaya, informed him that he spent 2.25bn/- on construction of a new bus stand.
Dr Mpango questioned the amount injected in the project, saying the structure was too small to cost over 2bn/-.
Dr Mpango directed the Deputy Minister in the President’s office (Regional Administration and Local Governments) Dr Festo Dugange to suspend Mr Dambaya and submit to him a thorough report on the DED’s five-year performance in the office.
