The measures taken by the Government of Tanzania after the release of the report of the Controller and Auditor General for the year 2021/2022, which showed that there has been a large amount of misuse of public funds have been stated to be ineffective because the concept of accountability has not been fully implemented.

Therefore, due to the situation, various stakeholders have proposed various ways that they think if the relevant authorities and leaders implement them, then the misuse of public funds will be able to end in the country.

One of the proposed methods includes reducing the power of the President of appointing the chief directors of the authorities. Thus those people should be selected based on the criteria they had, and that should be immediately after applying for a job in the government.

All of this was stated on April 28, 2023, at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel during a debate organized at the end of each month by the non-governmental organization Policy Forum, which oversees issues of transparency and accountability in the government.

"It is true that the constitution gives Her Excellency the President great authority to almost appoint everything," says Ludovick Utouh, who is a retired CAG and currently working as the Executive Director of the Wajibu Institute.

"But we were thinking that in those public organizations that have been created for the purpose of making profits, the positions of senior executives we think would be announced, then people applied for jobs in the Government."

Utouh continues to say, “Therefore, the people in the government know how to use it, but making money is not the domain of public workers, now if you give someone to manage an organization, the truth is that you are giving them something that is the opposite."

According to the CAG report for the year 2021/2022, a total of 14 commercial organizations have suffered losses for two consecutive years.

Some of these organizations include Tanzania Airlines (ATCL), Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC), National Development Corporation (NDC), TANOIL Investment Company, Arusha International Conference Center, and others organizations.

Also, it has been suggested that there is a need for the report of the Director of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) to be made public to show what is being done by government officials. That it will add accountability sense to those officials. 

This is due to the fact that despite the CAG report being submitted together with the PCCB report, the report that is made public is only the CAG report. 

"We are advocating for the PCCB report submitted to the president to be made public,” says Utouh when he was presenting his institution's recommendations immediately after doing their analysis. “As it is with the report submitted to the president by the CAG on the same day which is eventually become public." 

"We are saying that if you remember every year when the CAG submits a report to the president the Director General of PCCB also submits his report to the President. It also happened this year, last year it happened. But what we are seeing the CAG report submitted to the President goes to parliament, and it becomes a public document. We do not see the PCCB report going to parliament and being made public." 

But it has also been suggested that there is a need to reduce the time for the CAG to conduct its audit and come up with a report from nine months to six months.

Because the fiscal year for the government begins on July 1, every year. Utouh thinks that by December 31, CAG should come with a report showing how the use of public funds went and not wait until the period before March 31, in order to increase the efficiency and responsibility of his inspection which he will be doing at short intervals.

Since the release of the CAG report on April 29, 2023, there are steps that the government under President Samia Suluhu has taken. These measures include the removal of some executives whose institutions have been mentioned in the CAG report.

For example, in recent days, President Samia announced the dissolution of the board of the Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) and canceled the appointment of the Chief Executive of the Tanzania Government Flight Agency (TGFA).

As a result of the actions taken by President Samia, the Executive Director of the Policy Forum, Semkae Kilonzo has noted that the concept created by the public officers is that the people who are dismissed when the misuse of public funds occurs are only the Chief Executives and the Ministers.

But the truth is that the management of the systems is under the below executives who are always there and also supervise and are involved in wasteful actions.

"Well, we can say that these are examples of action, but for me, I think that it is not sufficient in the sense that you cannot fire the Director of a certain public institution, but for the fraud to occur, the Minister or the Director alone is not enough," explained Kilonzo.

"There are systems there and the professionals who play with the systems are those below. There is a certain culture in our public institutions to say that the ones who will be held responsible are those who are at the top, with political guarantees, while we are not touched."

The Director of Tanzania Media Foundation (TMF), Dastan Kamanzi, has pointed out that in order to increase accountability, the media also have the responsibility to work reliably in three periods and not only emerge during the period when the CAG is issuing his report.

The periods in which the media is required to work are the period of decisions or plans, the second period is that of implementing plans and the third is the period of evaluation. 

According to Kamanzi for the Tanzanian media, they have been working only during the evaluation period, a situation that is not productive in eradicating the misuse of public funds.

As a result of this circumstance, it has been suggested that there is a need for the enactment of a new law that will govern the fraud practices of public funds in order to be able to hold accountable anyone who is alleged to be involved in the acts.

This was said during the Policy Forum monthly Breakfast Debate on April 28, 2023, organized by Policy Forum and Wajibu Institute at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel.

It has also been suggested that there is a need for the report of the Director of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) to be sent to the parliament and then made public in order to highlight the things that the government officials are doing.

This is because despite the PCCB report being presented at the same time as the CAG report to the President, the PCCB report always has not been sent to parliament and made public.

“The government should enact a fraud act for holding accountable any person implicated with fraudulent practices,” said Ludovick Utouh who is the former Controller and Auditor General and now working as a Director of Wajibu Institute.

Utouh continues to say, “we are saying that if you remember every year when the CAG submits a report to the president the Director General of PCCB also submits his report to the President. It also happened this year, last year it happened. But what we are seeing the CAG report submitted to the President goes to parliament, and it becomes a public document. We do not see the PCCB report going to parliament and being made public." 

"We are advocating for the PCCB report submitted to the president to be made public as it is with the report submitted to the president by the CAG on the same day which is eventually become public.” 

In addition to those measures, it has been suggested also there is a need to reduce the time for the CAG to do its work to issue the report from nine months to six months.

Usually, the fiscal year for the government begins on July 1, every year. Utouh thinks that by December 31, CAG should come with a report showing how the use of public funds went and not wait until the period before March 31.

“In the spirit of the government embracing technology in its operations and its determination to transform itself into e-government, Wajibu Institue is strongly advocating for the reduction in the country’s financial reporting timeframe from the current nine months to six months.”

“This will avail more time for the parliamentary oversight committees to scrutinize the CAG reports which will be an input to the country’s next year’s budget preparations,” Utouh emphasized.”