Govt plans to draw up guidelines to check misuse of research funds

Dar es Salaam.  In order to prevent researchers from misusing donor funds, the government plans to draw up guidelines to blacklist or suspend those, who will be found misusing them.

Most researchers have found themselves amidst scandals of embezzlement of donor funds due to pressure for funds, publications, recognition and career development.

Principal research officer with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (Costech), Dr Khadija Malima, told The Citizen at the sidelines of marking 40 years of research cooperation between Sweden and Tanzania that since Costech was mandated to coordinate research across the country they were obliged to ensure studies were conducted in accordance with professional standards and practices.

She noted that they had already taken views from stakeholders and other members of the public and currently they were finalising to draft the guidelines, which would come into place January next year.

“There is a need for integrity and ethics to protect donors and people from threats brought about by fabricated or plagiarised research,” she said.

According to her, there have been complaints from donors, who funded research with the hope of finding solutions to problems, but funds ended up being mismanaged.

She noted that with the guidelines, misconduct in research through fabrication, falsification, plagiarism and other practices that seriously deviated from the findings could face a penalty such being blacklisted or suspended.

According to her, there is need for the government to avoid the risk of falling into the pitfalls of blindly copying technology and industrial practices, which are fraught with obsolescence and environmental sustainability risks as well as unacceptable efficiency levels of energy utilisation.

“The country will be better equipped as a nation to steer a socio-economic transformation drive through industrialisation in a manner that will ensure economic prosperity with environmental sustainability through research.

She said that the government had prioritised five areas of research for the next five years, which included human capital development and quality livelihood, energy, national tourism and cultural heritage, natural resource management, environment and climate change as well across cutting areas.