MAJORITY of public leaders on Tuesday rushed to the Ethics Secretariat offices to beat the deadline of submission of assets and liabilities declaration forms.
Some of them submitted the forms personally while others sent their representatives to hand over the documents on their behalf. Declaring assets and liabilities is stipulated in the Public Leadership Code of Ethics Act.
President John Magufuli’s declaration forms were submitted last week, literally sending a message to other leaders to do likewise before the deadline.
His Private Secretary, Mr Ngusa Samike, did so on behalf of the Head of State.
At the Dar es Salaam zonal office, the response was high as the ‘Daily News’ witnessed scores of people representing leaders coming in to submit the forms.
The office was busy as representatives of the leaders flocked to the building in the city centre.
Speaking to this paper on Tuesday, Secretariat Commissioner Judge (rdt) Harold Nsekela said the number was high at every zonal office as leaders continued to return the forms, describing the situation as ‘satisfactory.’
However, until press hours, Judge Nsekela was not in a position to provide the total number of leaders who had returned the forms countrywide.
“From information I have so far is that until today (yesterday) submission of the forms has been on a high pace, showing that there is high response from the leaders,” he stated.
He said the Secretariat would in the next few days issue a countrywide assessment report after completion of the exercise.
For Dar es Salaam alone, at least 500 leaders submitted their forms by 4pm on Tuesday.
He said following the big number, the Secretariat extended working hours up to 6pm in order to give more time for the exercise.
Justice Nsekela noted that after collecting the forms, the secretariat would analyze the information to determine its appropriateness otherwise.
Until December 20th, a total of 2,369 leaders returned the forms against 13,699 who were supposed to do so.
He told the ‘Daily News’ that in 2020, the Secretariat would focus on dealing with leaders conducting businesses or any other activities that implied conflict of interest with their leadership positions.
