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Public eager to see Pinda ’in action’
2006-05-24 09:39:03
By Editor
concern over dubious accumulation of wealth by local government leaders, the high officials of the district and urban councils was raised this week by the government.
To spill the ’beans’ was Mizengo Pinda, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office in charge of Local Government, when he was addressing government leaders in Iramba District, Singida Region.
Pinda was quoted as saying that he was shocked to hear that some of the council officials had become rich within a very short time, a trend he said, undermined government efforts to institute good governance.
The minister was actually echoing President Jakaya Kikwete’s own concerns about how these councils are being run. Late last month, the President gave one month to corrupt and inefficient councils to reform, or else he would dissolve them.
We think that if inefficiency and corruption are the watchwords, then the President should as well be prepared to dissolve most of the 100 plus councils nationwide.
It has never been a secret that councils have become ’institutions’ where money changes hands. stern measures need to be taken to recover funds that were embezzled. The minister was not speaking about something that did not exist, only that the war needs to be intensified.
On the other hand, people tend to believe that Dar es Salaam councils are clean and only those located in the country’s remote regions are the ones involved in corruption, because they are far from prying eyes of the central government and its institutions of restraint.
However, the minister’s directive would serve no useful purpose, if the aim was to rectify the trend to merely sound out the alarm and then forget about the whole issue.
We think such approach is not within the spirit of the fourth phase government and we therefore suggest that Minister Pinda’s concerns should be swiftly followed by genuine action, to bring to book all officials who have accumulated questionable wealth by using their positions in the councils.
The government has more than enough of the so called watch-dogs for the investigation and prosecution of culprits.
The Prevention of Corruption Bureau (PCB) has officials stationed in every district in the country and these, we believe, have the necessary skills for the job, apart from the eyes and ears of wananchi.
In fact it’s not only the councils that have been turned into some gravy trains. There are other areas of concern and the government should get prepared because wananchi are watching each and every development.
We also think that for the watch-dogs, it’s not the question of lack of evidence, but rather a political will. Let us see if this time around, embezzlers of public funds learn it the hard way.
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