AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE ball is now in Parliament’s court after the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) Charles Kichere, yesterday tabled his maiden audit reports for the year ending June 30, 2019 in the House, uncovering massive irregularities in Central and Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and Public Entities (PEs).
The submission of the audit reports in the Parliament now opens doors for lawmakers to go through review, debate and suggest appropriate punitive measures against the culprits.
Soon after presenting the 2018/2019 annual audit reports in the House in the afternoon, the CAG briefed journalists on the rot he had revealed within different entities.
Flanked by the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Naghenjwa Kaboyoka, and Deputy Chairperson of the Local Authorities Committee (LAAC), Abdallah Chikota, Mr Kichere asked responsible authorities to work on his recommendations to avoid further misuse of public funds.
The CAG’s review at the National Identification Authority (NIDA), realised that the Authority had not recovered the advance payment amounting to 28.2bn/- paid to M/s IRIS Corporation Berhad of Malaysia (Contractor) for the procurement and supply of goods and equipment for National ID system.
Even though the contract had expired since March 14, 2018, exactly two years ago, the report says, 33 ICT equipment supporting Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) machines were missing in various Councils.
“The missing equipment are laptops, cameras, disks, derma log, solar and adapter,’’ said Mr Kichere.
The report shows that there was inefficiency in handling and resolving tax objections within the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).
“I noted that TRA has lodged objections with total taxes of 84.6bn/- by taxpayers that were outstanding beyond the allowable period as specified in TRA Service Charter…the delay in settlement of tax objections have a negative impact on revenue collection targets since these cases tie up a substantial amount of taxes,’’ he said.
The CAG report further revealed that fuel levy and transit charges amounting to 7.06bn/- collected TRA was not transferred to Roads Fund Board (RFB).
At the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the CAG noted serious significant procurement issues in the 2018/2019 report including among others, irregularities in the contract for supply of pole tents for NEC worth 6.3bn/-.
On issues of procurement, the CAG noted that Ministry of works, Transport and Communications (Vote 62) paid TTCL for procurement of battery cells, connectors and other accessories for replacement in the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) sites worth 1.6bn/- without Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry and TTCL.
“I also noted that five audited entities made procurement of goods and services worth 5.4bn/- without contracts contrary to the legislation.
Besides, I noted that the Ministry of Agriculture (Vote 43) procured agricultural chemicals worth 3.3bn/- but the same were not distributed to the intended beneficiaries. Delays may cause the chemicals to expire before use,’’ said Mr Kichere.
According to the CAG, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism along with its affiliates executed unbudgeted activities known as Urithi Festival Celebration and special Television channel for broadcasting tourist attraction— Tanzania Safari Channel, at a cost of 2.58bn/-without prior approval of the National Assembly.
The CAG report further uncovered poor expenditure management within Public Entities including irregularities the transfer of fund by Fire and Rescue Force for construction of head office in Dodoma amounting to 1.7bn/-.
There was also irregularities on the payments made by Tanzania Police force for construction of various infrastructures amounting to 806.7m/-, exorbitant costs for hiring chairs, tents and private vehicles by the Tanzania Peoples Defence Force (489.8m/-), fraudulent EFD receipts issued to Tanga Regional Secretariat amounting to 70m/- as well as inappropriate use of imprest account by the Tanga Regional Secretariat which cause loss of 615.7m/-.
The CAG audit of embassies of Brazil, Algeria and Sweden noted exorbitant rental charges for Diplomatic Residential Houses amounting to 1,02bn/- and inadequately supported payments by five embassies running to 645m/-.
The five embassies in foreign countries are Canada, Burundi, Russia, Sweden and Japan.
