AfricaPress-Tanzania: COMMITMENT by the fifth phase government in stamping out corruption has been cited as the major reason behind good performance of the country in 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking.
Speaking to reporters in Dodoma on Saturday, Prevention and Combatting of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) Director General Brigadier General John Mbungo said achievements recorded and the ongoing war against corruption have made country to be grouped in the least corrupt nations in the world.
According to the 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report released by Transparent International, Tanzania comes second after Rwanda in East African region in the list of least corrupt nations.
Globally the country is placed 94th out of 180 countries in fighting corruption and its indicators.
According to Brig.General Mbungo, since the fifth phase government under President John Magufuli took over power in 2015, fighting corruption has been ranking on its agenda, saying: “It is a great achievement for the PCCB and the country as a whole. In the same report in 2015, we were ranked 117th out of 180 countries. Within five years we wrestled down 23 countries. We extend our sincere thanks to those who joined hands in the battle, especially the media, public and other stakeholders,” he told reporters.
Elaborating, the director attributed the great achievement to President John Magufuli investing a lot in fighting the menace, saying: “The innermost desire of our president to make sure Tanzania becomes a free corruption zone is being seen. He publicly scrapped off graft, corruption and money laundry schemes, including establishing a special court to try suspects.”
He further said President Magufuli’s set precedence of changing public civil servants’ attitude to shun corruption as well as serious sensitization efforts in public make many people fight the crime.
“PCCB ensures that all funds allocated for development projects are judiciously spent for their intended purposes to improve public services.
“From 2016 to 2020, we followed up at least 3,329 public projects and established some elements of embezzlements, misappropriation and theft of funds in 446 projects accounting for 87bn/-, which are now under our investigation,” pointed out the PCCB boss.
Equally, he noted they will continue creating public awareness and educating the public on consequences of corruption, adding: “We call upon members of the public to immediately report corruption indicators to any close PCCB Office in any region.”
Since President Magufuli ascended to power in 2015, suspected corrupt high profile government executives, politicians and ordinary people have been taken to court, a rare thing in the past regimes.
It is during President Magufuli’s administration that the Corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court was also established and intensifies war on corruption.
According to the latest CPI report, Tanzania scored 38/100 behind Rwanda, becoming the second least corrupt nation in East African region. Rwanda scored 54/100 while Burundi trailed scoring 19/100.
In the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tanzania ranked 7th out of 15 member states with Seychelles leading after scoring 66.
Globally, New Zealand and Denmark lead the race in being the least countries in the world, while South Sudan and Somalia are the most corrupt nations in the globe.
The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is for the highly corrupt nations and 100 very clean.
