Hamad is suffocating CUF, Lipumba says

Dar es Salaam. Embattled CUF national chairman Prof Ibrahim Lipumba yesterday accused the party’s secretary-general Maalim Seif Sharif Hamad of suffocating the party, especially on Mainland Tanzania.

According to Prof Lipumba, Mr Hamad, who is constitutionally the party’s accounting officer, has frozen all the party’s district accounts on the mainland.

CUF is embroiled in an intra-part leadership wrangle since last year after Prof Lipumba, who resigned from party chairmanship before the 2015 General Election, reclaimed his position. The move was not welcome by other leaders led by Mr Hamad, who later kicked him out of the party. However, the Registrar of political parties reinstated the economics don to his position.

The party has been denied subsidies since October last year due to the wrangle. However, early in January Prof Lipumba’s faction received Sh369 channelled through the party’s Temeke District account instead of the national account controlled by Mr Hamad. The disbursement of the grant was criticised by Mr Hamad’s camp, referring to it as a robbery of the party’s legal funds.

Prof Lipumba told reporters before they held their normal central committee meeting at the party’s Buguruni offices that CUF was still deeply divided and the party’s district committees were starving and couldn’t finance their activities.

He said the meeting would, therefore, discuss, among other issues, the accounts debacle. “Our grassroots leaders have failed to pay rent and carry out other important activities for three months now due to our financial constraints. The situation is unacceptable and we have to find ways to resolve it,” he said.

Also, Prof Lipumba noted that the meeting would also discuss the party’s aspirants to the East Africa Legislative Assembly (Eala). Currently, CUF has one Eala member Twaha Taslima, who is a loyalist of the Mr Hamad camp. Mr Taslima vowed to run for reelection, but it is unclear how the two camps will go about the nominations.