Act now to address CAG queries, says Zitto

Dodoma. ACT-Wazalendo leader Zitto Kabwe said yesterday that the government needs to strengthen administration system to deal with unethical practices that were unearthed by the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) in his audit report for the 2017/18 financial year.

Mr Kabwe said the CAG’s report shows that at least Sh800 billion has been misappropriated and that some Sh4.8 trillion was spent without passing through proper legal procedures. He also said that there was a failure to allocate Sh678 billion to respective institutions.

He said having read the report, he came to realise that during the 2017/18 financial year, actual revenue collected by the government from various sources stood at Sh27.7 trillion, of which Sh26.9 trillion was spent, leaving some Sh800 billion unaccounted for.

Mr Kabwe added that, CAG report shows that some Sh4.8 trillion was spent without passing through the National Treasury Consolidated Fund, which is against the law.

He said the government also spent some Sh678 billion, which was collected by the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) on behalf of other institutions, without remitting the funds to the relevant beneficiary institutions.

“The problem with our government is that it lacks inadequate internal control in recording and reporting,” he said.

He said President John Magufuli should come up with strong administration system that would be capable to deal with corruption, misuse of public fund and economic sabotage.

Furthermore, he said the government failed to pay some Sh212.7 billion it owes Bank of Tanzania (BoT), suggesting that the debt be paid immediately.