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Radar case should be study object in SFO-PCB training
2007-04-05 09:15:21
By Mwondoshah Mfanga
When President Jakaya Kikwete was touring European countries recently he was quoted telling the King of Norway, Harold V, that Britain`s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is going to assist Tanzania in the training of the Prevention of Corruption Bureau (PCB).
Whether the president did this in order to impress the King over the government performance is neither here nor there.
But basing on the President`s remarks there are two things that need consideration in view of his current engagement in the war against graft and the kind of institutions that he has chosen to use to eliminate it.
More and more people see that at the moment there is a show of seriousness by the government in grappling with matters pertaining to corruption in the country and this symbolises the Fourth Phase`s clear apprehension of the weight of the problem and how it affects growth and the society in general.
It was only in January that he made a scoop from the US government, which gave him over USD11bn for training of anti-graft officials and capacity building of the graft body PCB.
That was not however the start. It has always been clear, even in his initial statements he made in view of the issue right from his first Speech to Parliament in January 2006.
So far so good, it appears that the will to fight this ‘never falling beast’ is there right from the top government level.
Apparently it is understood that SFO is currently studying the scandalous sale of radar to the Tanzanian government by Bae Systems International, a British company that deals in aircraft technology during the Third Phase Government.
And it is also good news to learn that Tanzanians were made aware by President Kikwete that SFO officials had come, at least twice to Tanzania, where they interrogated key suspects connected to the radar sale deal.
It is mouth watering news that the British fraud office is working with their Tanzanian counterparts.
But it is also soothing news to learn that there is coincidence of some form to learn that both the intended trainer and the intended trainee have some unfortunate kind of business relationship which could at the same time be used in the planned training.
That is to say since the British SFO is to train PCB officials and already there is an investigation case before the British and Tanzania governments, then it would be encouraging, and much more transparent to have the two anti-graft bodies (study) investigate Bae Systems International as a case study in the planned training!
Should SFO only offer training to PCB officials and leave or use other cases only instead, this might be looked at by fraud training and graft professionals as lack of seriousness, and probably an attempt to by pass the matter.
Should this happen it would remind me of the incident of Moshi Training College in 2003, where the administration admitted students in a manner that one could find to be unfree of corrupt elements and after it had undertaken training for sometime, some of the subjects appeared not to be performing well.
What the Principal, one Mwesiga did was to embark on a check whereby he discovered that a number of students had found their way to the college through dubious means some did have fake certificates, while some had not undertaken proper medical care.
The `poor` police Principal decided just to sack the non qualified students instead of treating them as an object of study by the students who were allowed to proceed with their studies.
To chuck them off from the college was a wrong approach for besides, denying the rest of the students an object of study; it also unnecessarily protected graft practising officials at the college from being investigated.
This case is analogous to that of Bae Systems International, and many people will be astounded to find that the two bureaux in the course of offering training they embarked on something else instead of studying something that had by coincidence touched their governments and businesses.
This is how this problem could be looked at.
However, in relation training, throughout the fight of graft, the government, the people and even institutions we have been fighting corruption more or less in a lopsided manner.
We have always put the cart before the horse the use of clubs, guns and even force before anything else even the mind, intelligence, ideology and education.
Nevertheless, corruption that is fought by such means can hardly go. If you look at the situation in Tanzania today, from the working places to the homes to schools to the media and the army, you will find that corruption is prevalent and the mode of graft that exists cannot be fought only by placing a state bureau before every societal institution or individuals.
Corruption can at best be fought by putting the people and the society in general before the bureau or any other statal organisation. How?
The most important method in combating graft is to fight it by moulding people’s mindset through education.
The panacea for graft is therefore education and a thorough sensitisation of the people so that they see corruption as a societal enemy and that means have to be sought to fight it.
This could be done by first introducing a compulsory subject on anti-corruption in schools curricula right from, say Primary Three onwards to university level.
This means we should not rely on those who are at work today to do something fundamental in combating corruption. But instead we should bank on this new class under moulding.
This is necessary because moulding people to love or hate something starts from youth.
Almost all the grown up generations love corruption, because they have been moulded to live and be so. Swahili people say Samaki mkunje angali mbichi, literally meaning ‘A fish should be bent while it is just fresh from water`.
The general practice at the moment is that when people choose even careers at school, many hesitate to do it without putting in the element of corruption.
Nachagua hii kwa saabu ndiyo yenye unga bwana (I am choosing this because it is beefy). And even parents in their upright thinking would advice so. Very few would advice their children to choose careers that are geared merely at offering services to the nation.
This is a hidden dangerous precedence because if corruption has penetrated in this noble field of education to that level then there is no point in putting much more reliance on quassi-army kind of institutions to combat graft.
PCB should fight its own war, yes, but the greatest method and modality of fighting this prairies fire is to embark on schools and reshape our preferences from there.
Besides this, sensitisation through workshops and seminars aimed at refreshing professionals, workers, bureaucrats, businesses and politicians how to observe rules enshrined in their code of conduct can continue, but not in the manner they are done at the moment.
The way most of these activities are done today presupposes corruption because some of the operators bank on the operation of these fora to amass wealth besides the fact that they are some people`s projects.
In conclusion, the war on corruption is an easy one, but it is complicated by the circumlocutious methods that as a country and society we have decided to resort to. Education is the only sure way, but it should be imparted rightly.
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