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Officials impeding probe into ghost workers scam warned
2006-02-25 07:53:47
By Mwinyi Sadallah, Zanzibar
The government yesterday moved swiftly and warned officers in Pemba against obstructing the police in their investigations into the Isles’ ghost workers scam.
Without mincing words, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Sultan Mohamed Mugheiry, has instructed the sleuths to, without intimidation, investigate and arrest all the culprits in the ghost workers scandal that has rocked Pemba.
A 251-ghost workers syndicate was recently unearthed in the health sector on the Island.
The order came in the wake of complaints by police about an official in the ministry who prevented them from accessing his office to investigate the scandal that has cost the government millions of shillings.
Mugheiry was categorical that the law empowers the police, on behalf of Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to access anywhere and investigate criminal offenses.
’Anyone who therefore obstructs the police or refuses to co-operate with the police while in the course of their work is committing an offense and the law ought to take its due course against such individuals,’ sternly stated the minister.
He said the ministry had computed and established that the exchequer lost 21.6m/- per month in salary for the 251 fictitious.
’Those who will be found to have had a hand in the scandal will be dealt with according to the law,’ said Mugheiry.
He said that the ministry discovered the existence of ghost workers between late January and early this month after it emerged there were two payrolls.
The minister said that investigations were going on in Pemba and Zanzibar to determine if there were more ghost workers, and to establish those behind the scam.
Talking about improving workers’ salaries, Mugheiry said the government had allocated about 71m/- to cushion the increments for medical practitioners’ salaries effected in January 2006.
Currently, he said, the ministry of health has 3,736 workers ’probably including more ghost workers.’ Zanzibar’s workforce stands at 26,000.
Mugheiry promised that the government would not condone any officer who by any means prevents the police from executing their work. He said the strong arm of the law would catch up with such errant officers.
Earlier, the Kaskazini Pemba Regional Police Commander, Amiri Juma Amiri had confirmed investigations into the multimillion scam was temporarily halted after the trusteeship officer in the ministry of health blocked the police from undertaking investigations.
It was reported the officer claimed that the investigations into the scam would be undertaken by his officers.
On his part, the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation in Zanzibar, Ramadhan Kinyongo said that investigations were still underway and promised that all those behind the rip-off would be apprehended and prosecuted.
He said the government has authorised him to expedite the investigation.
This is the second time the health ministry has been discovered to have ghost workers on its payroll. The first scandal was exposed in 2002.
According to the Health Ministry Principal Secretary, Omar Makame, the problem of ghost workers was also discovered in 2002, but the exact number of the workers was not known.
However, no legal punitive measures were taken against those who were implicated in the loss of the taxpayer’s money.
The Ministry of Health has undertaken major reforms, including the introduction of cost sharing on health services.
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