AfricaPress-Tanzania: SPEAKER of the National Assembly Mr Job Ndugai on Thursday said that queries raised by the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) reports in district councils are caused by incompetent accountants.
Speaking after the Deputy Minister for Finance and Planning Hamad Yusuph Masauni had responded to a question by Kibamba legislator Issa Mtemvu, (CCM), Mr Ndugai said that the queries in the CAG report have been caused by the accountants.
“When you go through the report, you will notice that some of the problems raised in district councils have been caused by incompetent accountants … some of them have been doing so and they were transferred to other councils, but that has been causing them to get qualified audit reports. He advised the Ministry of Finance and Planning to work on such kind of accountants in order to help the councils to improve their audit reports.
In his basic question, Mtemvu wanted to know when the government will implement a Circular No 3 of 2015 on Accounting Structure and Internal Audit. He also wanted to know when the accounting and finance units in ministries and regional secretariats will be upgraded to departments.
Responding, Mr Masauni said that the circular had started being implemented since July 2018 by differencing accounting officers and accountants. “According to the new structure, accountants are those who have attained Certified Public Accountant (CPA), and those who have no such qualification will be recognised as accounting officers. On upgrading ministries and regional secretariats, he said there were various criteria used in upgrading such units.
“These structures are being reviewed several times by cooperating with experts from the President’s Office, Public Service Management and discussed by decision making bodies… It is my expectation that once such units have met, the required criteria will be upgraded to departments,” he said.
