Ambassador Ombeni Sefue

Chief Secretary has said that corruption and lack of integrity are a public service and societal matters as well as cultural issues, adding that its solution should cover the entire society.

Ambassador Ombeni Sefue said: “If society will glorify public servants that retire comfortably on ill-gotten wealth they will create appropriate ground for entrenched corruption.”

“If religious organisations turn a blind eye to ill-gotten donation and wealth, the media keep on referring public service appointments as opportunities to enjoy public wealth and if society accepts the problem will not be wiped out, then the battle will be complicated ” he warned.

Sefue was speaking on the sidelines in an exclusive interview with The Guardian after a recent five-day annual auditors’ conference in Bagamoyo. He advised that a workable solution would be to deal with the root causes, and not effects.

He went on: “If the cause is weak internal accounting control, let’s work together to strengthen them, and if the cause is lack of integrity let’s strengthen the forensic audit capacity of National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT).

Sefue said they are discussing with the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) on strengthening internal control and build capacity especially in Local Government Authorities (LGA) to reduce audit queries in shortest time possible.

He said one way is to build robust and effective system of internal controls without which they can not provide a comprehensive response to theft and embezzlement of public fund.

The head of civil service who is in his seventh month in the office said reports by NAOT have made impact at both local and international level. Reports were now readable and user friendly and produced on time, he observed.

“But work is still in progress to see to it that the welfare of NAOT staff is taken into account to enable them concentrate more on their duties,” Sefue promised.

He said improved accountability in collection of public resources and use will only be achieved through leaders who will act with ethics and integrity.

Chief Secretary said faithfulness, zero tolerance to corruption and integrity are three attributes which constitute to the basis for accountability in execution of public duties.

During the meeting the Controller and Auditor General(CAG) Ludovic Utouh said auditors and civil servants are bound to observe high level of ethics and integrity.

“In our country we have witnessed low level of ethics and integrity in the public sector; we need to attain high level of ethics and integrity,” CAG said