VP Mpango breathes fire over funds abuse by local councils

Arusha. Vice President, Phillip Mpango, yesterday expressed anger over blatant misuse and theft of public funds by officials serving in the local councils.

He asked public servants behind corruption-related scams to bow out because they have lost integrity to serve in a public office.

"Instead of waiting for investigations or findings of the probe teams, they should step out. They are no longer needed in public service," he said.

He challenged heads of the local authorities - city, municipal, town and district councils - to act swiftly against officials behind abuse of office and theft.

He said local authorities' chiefs should not wait for orders from above to contain squander of the public financial resources.

Dr Mpango gave the warming at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) where he graced the opening of the 37th Congress of the Association of the Local Authorities of Tanzania (ALAT).

He said public servants squandering or stealing funds meant for development projects have breached their work ethics and financial discipline they were supposed to observe and should exit.

The VP stressed high level discipline in development funds expenditure, noting that the tax payers expect to see value of their money in project implementation.

He reminded the local councils to sustain fund remittance to the village governments to ensure they operated effectively and enable them to oversee projects at the grassroots levels.

Dr Mpango also called on the civic leaders, particularly the councillors, to support the government's drive against embezzlement of funds meant for the development projects.

 The councillors should assist the government to plug the loopholes through which the state loses revenues either through wastage or poor collection, he said.

The VP cited cases where funds allocation of implementation of projects were channeled to the bank accounts of some corrupt local leaders or the council officials.

"The government has no business with such officials. They are notorious for squandering of public resources. There is no need for them to continue serving in the public office," he pointed out.

Dr Mpango, whose office holds the environment docket, directed that each local council should have a focal person responsible for environment conservation and who will be accountable for projects falling within the sector.

Speaking at the meeting, the minister of State for Regional Administration and Local Government (RALG), Angela Kairuki, said the government expects improved service delivery from the councils.

She implored the local councils to ensure full involvement of wananchi in project design and implementation so that nobody is left behind.

ALAT deputy chairman, Murshid Ngeze, promised that the association will be accountable on supervision of funds allocated for executive of various development projects.

He said improved collection of revenues has seen some councils removed from the list of dozens which had audit queries from the Controller and Auditor General (CAG).

He added that ALAT would emphasise on effective and efficient collection of the much needed revenues by its nearly 200 members.

He, however, appealed to the central government to employ accountants currently working with the local authorities because the latter can hardly afford paying them salaries.

The central government should do the same for the procurement staff who continue to drain the meagre resources of the local governments through salary payments, he said.

The three day conference is sponsored by NMB Bank Plc which announced yesterday that it has remitted Sh 1.3 trillion in taxes to the national coffers in the past eight years.

The revenue raised by the lender could have financed the combined budgets of several ministries in the Union government.

Last year alone, Tanzania's leading financial services business paid taxes amounting to Sh467 billion.

Yesterday, the bank showcased the contribution to the national development efforts during the annual congress of LGA's (local government authorities).

Opening the congress the VP lauded the top lender for improving the livelihoods of Tanzanians through its financial support for productive activities.

"We should emulate NMB in its campaign to plant a million trees", he said, noting that NMB had partnered with RALG in tree planting in various parts of the country.

The lender has also nurtured a competition with a price package oF Sh.472 million for the winners and all participants..

Dr Mpango called on the LGAs to maintain fiscal discipline when spending funds from the central government, strive to improve their revenue collections and tame leakages of public funds for better and comfortable undertaking of development projects.