CAG speaks out on Bunge
The Controller and Auditor General, Prof Mussa Assad,
Dar es Salaam. The Controller and Auditor General, Prof Mussa Assad, yesterday opened up on some of the accusations levelled against him by Parliament, saying he had been condemned unfairly.
He told The Citizen that while he did not know the motive behind Parliament’s resolve not to work with him, his conscious was clean.
“There have been accusations that I labeled Parliament “weak” but that would be baseless,” said Prof Assad in an exclusive interview.
He said the usage of the word weakness in the audit profession was not of his own creation and had been used severally in official documents, including in many government audit reports.
Prof Assad said he was taking the matter calmly and was not under any duress.
Parliament early in the week passed a resolution not to work with Prof Assad following a report by the Parliamentary Privileges, Ethics and Powers Committee which accused the CAG of showing “disrespect” to the august House.
The committee which interrogated Prof Assad in January said the CAG had stuck to his guns on their charge that he had showed disrespect by labelling the institution weak in an interview he held with the UN Radio Station.
The claim by the committee, and Prof Assad’s explanation would suggest the CAG did not back down and likely tabled evidence to show what he meant by the word udhaifu (weakness).
The House passed the motion of the committee by acclamation, with a majority of MPs from the ruling party, CCM, endorsing if.
Opposition legislators were outnumbered in their defense of the CAG, and at one time stormed out of the chamber when Deputy Speaker Dr Tulia Ackson ejected Arusha Urban lawmaker Godbless Lema (Chadema).
Mr Lema had insisted that Parliament was indeed weak to draw Dr Ackson’s wrath.
The MP has since been punished by the same committee, which ruled that he will stay away from Parliament for three consecutive sittings, meaning he will resume sittings in January 2020.
Kawe MP Halima Mdee (Chadema) was earlier expelled for two consecutive meetings for also saying at a public rally she agreed with Prof Assad’s assertion of weakness in Parliament’s work.
Yesterday, when asked about claims he showed contempt of Parliament in a foreign land, Prof Assad explained that it would be improper to impute that motive.
“I gave the said interview during a visit to the United Nations of which Tanzania is a member.”
“At the UN, I was interviewed by its Swahili radio station, and by a Tanzanian journalist who raised a matter affecting Tanzania. It would therefore be wrong to say that I was raising a domestic matter in a foreign land,” Prof Assad explained.
The CAG reiterated his position that he was not contemplating any steps, saying he would continue with his work as usual.
There had been questions whether Prof Assad would throw in the towel and resign.
The move by Parliament against Prof Assad has elicited wide criticism, with the CAG winning backing from various accountability institutions and from ordinary members of the public, mainly via social media.
Neither Speaker Job Ndugai’s assertion that the House merely singled out Prof Assad, and not the National Audit Office could quell the criticism which appeared to mount by the day.
Commentators feared Mr Ndugai was playing to the galary in his defence over the matter.
His predecessor, Mr Ludovick Utouh, of Wajibu Institute that advocates for good governance, was among those who faulted Parliament.
A public petition to reverse the Parliament’s motion had by 7pm attracted nearly 7,000 signatures.
Some Netizens who have come to Prof Assad’s defence have shared some past documents that referred to Parliament weakness to demonstrate that what was said by the CAG was not surprising or new.
One such document was a report by the UK’s Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group (AAPPG) that noted in 2009 that Tanzanian Parliament suffered “institutional weakness” by relying on the executive for its budgetary allocations.
Related to: Utouh speaks out on Assad treatment
