AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Controller and Auditor General (CAG) on Sunday handed over 21 Annual General Audit Reports for 2019/2020 to President Samia Suluhu Hassan, detailing massive irregularities in the Central Government, Public Institutions and Local Government Authorities (LGAs).
According to the CAG, Charles Kichere, the financial irregularities occasioned loss of billions of shillings to the government.
Mr Kichere presented the reports ending June 30 2020, covering general and performance audits, to President Samia at Chamwino State House in Dodoma, as the newly-sworn in Head of State commenced his official duties in the highest office of the land.
This was Ms Samia’s maiden public appearance in her official duties replacing the late President John Magufuli, who passed away suddenly on March 17, this year.
The CAG report highlights vital audit findings, provides recommendations to the government and suggests the possible solutions and way forward.
Regarding public entities, the CAG said his findings in the 2019/2020 report found out that there were several challenges which require government intervention.
For example, he said, there was serious rot at the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA), adding that a thorough intensive audit was still ongoing.
The CAG report established that there was embezzlement of 3.6bn/- at TPA.
Mr Kichere said the audit report found out that the national carrier, Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL), had made losses amounting to 60bn/- during the 2019/2020 financial year and that for the past five years it was making losses.
According to the CAG, his office handed over 900 audit opinions to all entities out of which 243 were handed over to the Central Government. Others are LGAs (185), Public Corporations (165), Development Projects (290) and Political Parties (17).
“Out of these 800 were unqualified opinion (89 per cent), 81 were adverse opinion (9 per cent), 10 were qualified opinion (1per cent) and nine others were disclaimer of opinion (1per cent).
He said out of 185 audited financial statements of LGAs, 124 received unqualified opinion reports, 53 received adverse opinion reports, while eight of them were slapped with qualified opinion.
In the new report, about 165 public entities were audited, out of which 162 were given unqualified opinion, while three received adverse opinion.
“In the central government, I provided 243 reports, out of which, 235 were unqualified opinion reports, six were adverse opinion and 2 were qualified opinion,’’ he said, adding that he also provided opinion to 17 political parties out of which, qualified opinion were four, unqualified opinion were also four while nine political parties could not account for their expenses thus receiving disclaimer of opinion.
In the new report, about 290 development projects were audited, out of which 275 received unqualified opinions, while 15 were adverse opinion reports.
According to Mr Kichere in the previous Annual Audit Reports, his office issued several recommendations aimed at increasing efficiency in revenue collection.
However in 2019/2020 report, an assessment show that out of 8,740 recommendations only 2,610 (equal to 30 per cent) had been fully implemented, while the implementation of 2662 others were only at 30 per cent and that the implementation of 2,292 recommendations (equal to 29 per cent) was yet to kick off.
The implementation of 750 recommendations (9 per cent) had been reiterated and 426 recommendations (5 per cent) are now outdated, he added.
“Madam President, I understand that the implementation of these recommendations is at different stages, however, its pace is not convincing because it is only 30 per cent of all recommendations that has been fully implemented, therefore more efforts are needed in order to widen revenue collection,’’ he noted.
Mr Kichere further said the National Audit Office (NAOT) made an audit on the implementation of laws and legislations on the availability of Petrol in the country where his office issued 15 recommendations, whereas only one was fully implemented, 13 were partially implemented and one of them was never implemented.
Also on Oil and Gas Human Resources development, NAOT did an intensive audit on ten recommendations that were provided. However, five were partially implemented while five others were never implemented.
“Equally, we did an audit on the supervision of geophysics and geology for Oil and Gas in Tanzania whereas about 16 recommendations were issued. However, eight of them were fully implemented while five were partially implemented and three others are yet to be implemented,” he noted adding:
“We also made an intensive audit on the supervision of the process for issuance of contracts for development of gas, where we issued 12 recommendations out of which, nine were partially implemented and three of them were not implemented at all,’’ he said
