Corruption and Other Controversies
Kikwete's presidency has been marked with wide range of corruption, some of which happened during the presidencies of his predecessors. Some of his supporters claim that to be a sign of transparency that was brought in by Mr Kikwete. Other cases, like deaths, have also been brought up such as Tanzanian police killing people on Tanzanian streets and getting away with it. Some of the leading known corruption scandals are:
| Issue/ Event | Date of Event | Cost to the Nation | Government Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1999 | £28 million | The Tanzania government agreed to buy an overpriced radar, which it cannot maintain now. It came to be known later that more than a third of the total purchasing price was paid to a middleman of British citizenship to secure the contract. Also based on an Interpol report, one government minister had siphoned more than £1m to his bank account in Jersey. After many international legal actions, BAE was ordered by court to pay £30m to Tanzanian government. |
|
2005–2006 | US$116 million | The scandal consists of fraudulent payment of about TSh133 billion ($116 million) made by the Bank of Tanzania to 22 companies in the financial year 2005/06 involving the repayment of the country's external debt. After the transactions became wildly known, the President sacked the Central Bank Governor and asked "kindly" those who looted the national treasury to return the money. A few months later, according to a government pronouncement, nearly half of the money (Tsh 60 billion) had "mysteriously" found its way back into state coffers. The Attorney General and the Inspector General of Police have refused to disclose the names, pleading for patience because the investigation is still going on. So far not all of the money has been returned and the government has neither released the culprit's names nor taken any legal action against them. |
|
2000–present | Unknown | Government officials in the previous administrations had taken advantage of the privatization policies and privatized national mines to themselves. A good example is the Kiwira mines, which were privatized to two individuals: the president and his minister for Energy and Natural Resources. The President of that time, Benjamin Mkapa, was rather "smart", registering his shares as AnBen Company; AnBen standing for first names of his wife Ann and himself Benjamin. |
|
2006 | US$150 million (TSh172 billion) | In 2006, Tanzania faced a serious crisis in electricity supply and, as an emergency measure, Richmond was awarded a contract to supply generators to provide 100 megawatts at a cost of TShs 172 billion. The generators failed to arrive on time and, when they did, they did not work as required. The pipeline was never built and the generators were provided by another company. Under part of the contract, however, the government agreed to pay some $137,000 a day regardless of the amount of electricity provided. Opposition MPs began to smell a rat and the House of Assembly set up a Select Committee to investigate the whole saga under the chairmanship of the ruling CCM Kyela MP, Harrison Mwakyembe. The committee worked diligently and eventually came up with a 165-page report. Parliamentary findings showed the Prime Minister(Edward Lowassa) to be involved in awarding the contract to nonexisting US-based company, and the Prime Minister resigned. However, the Tanzanian government had to keep the contract and keep paying a non-existing company $137,000 US a day without any power being generated. And now Tanzanians are faced with the problem of repaying the debt, with the government increasing the electricity bill by 40% |
Also, President Kikwete has been blamed for choosing his friends to the cabinet, a result of which he has no power to condemn them for their irresponsibility. The example of two consecutive bomb blasts at Mbagala and Gongo la Mboto arm base respectively in 2009 and 2011 where General Mwamunyange as well as the defense minister, Mwinyi, were in charge, but they insisted that it was not their fault for the blast and denied to brief the country about the reason for the blasts. The President himself kept praising to the two officials that they are working to secure a country something that raised anger among the victims of blasts.
Although in the past two years of Kikwete's presidency, a remarkable 1,500 new secondary schools have been built and a new 40,000-student science university has started being built in Dodoma, central Tanzania, the quality of these new schools are very poor, (no teachers, no desks, etc.), and there is still a lot that needs to be done. But these successes have led the United States government to grant Tanzania US $698 million under the Millennium Challenge Account assistance program, the UK government US $500 million for education, and the New York based Africa-America Institute (AAI) to award Tanzania the Africa National Achievement Award in September 2007 in New York.
President Kikwete launched a national campaign for voluntary HIV/AIDS testing in Dar es Salaam. He and his wife, First Lady of Tanzania Mama Salma Kikwete, were the first to be tested.
He was elected as Chairman of the African Union on January 31, 2008 at an AU summit in Addis Ababa. His first notable success as AU Chairman was to help bring a two month political crisis in Kenya to an end by brokering a power-sharing deal between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. He was also one of the first to criticise Robert Mugabe's regime at the most recent summit.
Read more about this topic: Jakaya Kikwete
Famous quotes containing the words corruption and and/or corruption:
“Were it not for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no ... necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“I condemn Christianity. I raise against the Christian church the most terrible accusation that any accuser has ever uttered. It is to me the ultimate conceivable corruption. It has possessed the will to the final corruption that is even possible. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity: it has turned every value into a disvalue, every truth into a falsehood, every integrity into a vileness of the soul.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)