‘Sacked’ MD says resigned long time ago

Dar es Salaam. Controversy surrounds the reported sacking of senior officials of the Rufiji Basin Development Authority (Rubada) over the disappearance of more than Sh2.3 billion development funds.

On Wednesday, the Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, Mr Stephen Wassira, announced the dismissal from office, Rubada acting director general Aloyce Masanja, finance director Filozi Mayayi and planning and investment director Tabu Ndaturu.

Yesterday Mr Masanja denied he has been sacked, saying: “I quit Rubada in September 2014 after acting as director general for six years and I am now engaged in farming.”

Mr Masanja said he quit Rubada in a resignation letter to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, which he copied to the Rubada Board of Directors chairman and the Chief Secretary, among others.

“I physically handed over my letter of resignation to the PS who acknowledged receipt,” said Mr Masanja, explaining that the PS, Ms Sophia Kaduma, appointed finance director Filozi Mayayi to act as director general.

He said he was thinking of suing the minister for tarnishing his good name, adding: “I am consulting my lawyers to see how to go about this matter.” Mr Masanja said Mr Wassira should stop mudslinging other people as a way of garnering political mileage for himself.

“He (the minister) should have demonstrated sincerity by informing me what has transpired. I wasn’t even approached by the reported special committee,” he said.

Mr Masanja said apart from his engagement in farming, he was overseeing a project called Future Earth, run under the auspices of International Human Dimensions Programme, an interdisciplinary science programme working toward a better understanding of human interaction with and within their natural environment.

He added: “I represent Tanzania in the programme while finalising my PhD at Ardhi University.”

Contacted yesterday for comment, Mr Wassira told The Citizen he was in a meeting and promised to call back later, but he never did.

The PS for Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, Ms Sophia Kaduma, challenged Mr Masanja to produce his resignation letter, saying, however, that she wasn’t his appointing authority.

Chief Secretary Ombeni Sefue said: “I don’t recall having seen the letter. I might have been on an official trip when the letter arrived in my office. And this office is big.”

Reading a report prepared by the special committee that was formed to investigate the persistent complaints against the mismanagement of Rubada funds on Wednesday, Mr Wassira said the three have been sacked over poor management and abuse of office.

According to Mr Wassira, due to poor distribution of work, some top officials forced their way into undertaking duties that they shouldn’t.

“The committee found that there was a weakness in the system that was created by the Rubada officials to give themselves loopholes to abuse office.

For example, due to lack of proper distribution of responsibilities, the acting director handled financial matters while there are finance officers... he was walking with the Rubada fund in his pocket and made payments freely,” he said.

“The investors were also complaining about being charged to facilitate investment procedures, but the money was not channelled to Rubada accounts and the investors were not given any land,” he said, adding that the investors have started to demand their money or be given the land they paid for.

He said, according to the report, the officials received Sh2.7 billion from the investors who wanted to work in various projects in the basin, but only Sh714 million was tracked to Rubada accounts.

The report has uncovered a loss amounting to Sh2.34 billion being funds collected from investors, Sh319 million which was meant for construction of a youth agriculture camp in Rufiji, Sh58 million which was supposed to be remitted to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) as workers’ contributions, Sh13 million which was issued as loans but was never repaid and Sh13 million which was spent by the accused officials.

In January, this year, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) ordered Rubada to be suspended immediately to pave the way for investigation over apparent misuse of public funds.

Then PAC chairman Zitto Kabwe said Rubada management had forged an auditor’s certificate for the purpose of concealing their misuse of funds.

“The committee has found Rubada with two audited reports for the same year ended June 2013, which is illegal,” he said. One certificate which is proper is qualified (not good) and the second one which is forged, has unqualified (good) mention by auditors.

The committee has also requested the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) to fire the chief auditor of Rubada for certificate forgery.

The committee stated that the investigation in Rubada should be conducted by an independent auditor in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, he said.

PAC had ordered the Rubada board to suspend the management immediately because they faced serious accusations, he said.