AfricaPress-Tanzania: A WISE man will always tell you that the biggest disease in mankind is corruption and its only known cure and vaccine is transparency.
If you don’t believe in that then switch to United States elect President, Joe Biden’s school of thought: “Corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity.”
The list might be long on why corruption is an enemy of the people, an enemy of development with a Nobel Prize laureate, Rigoberta Menchú crowning it all that: “Without strong watchdog institutions, impunity becomes the very foundation upon which systems of corruption are built.”
And if impunity is not demolished, all efforts to bring an end to corruption are in vain.
That is the exact world every Tanzanian wants, the people want a government that is allergic to corruption and a government that faces head-on the corrupt and wrestles them to the ground.
On the breath, the fifth phase government under President John Magufuli deserves praise for not mincing words and bravely fighting corruption with all its ‘mild’ and baptized names of kickbacks and clandestine payments in corridors.
Just to cite a recent case study in Mwanza, the Nyanza Cooperative Union was reported yesterday in the media to have got back its assets valued at 61bn/- that were stolen by the very people it trusted to be in office and manage it.
Speaking on an occasion to return the property, the Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary, Mr Gerald Kusaya we are told, further warned cooperative officers, who engage in illegal possession of institutions’ property that the government will not hesitate to punish them.
Elaborating, he noted that the property embezzled including pieces of land, building and machineries, is a show that dishonest workers are not only in the public but also in companies and institutions, they should be guarding.
In his address flashing back how the Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa smelled a rat when he visited the area and immediately ordered for a special team to investigate, also shows that corruption however long it will take to be hidden will still be known and punished.
The only way for any citizen who loves his/her nation is to shun corruption, because it erodes the trust people and wastes taxes paid for important community projects – meaning we have to put up with poor quality services or infrastructure, or we miss out altogether.
