ETHICS Commissioner Judge (rtd) Sivangilwa Mwangesi, has cautioned a number of eligible public officials skipping the proper fulfilment of their obligations in providing explanations on the sources of their wealth, as well as the value of their assets, as provided for in the asset declaration form.

At a media editors’ briefing over the weekend on successes of the secretariat during the past five years, he said that these errors give the impression that some leaders still do not have enough understanding about how to fill in asset declarations forms.

The issues that need to be set out are clear on the form, but various officials intentionally hide assets obtained they can’t explain their provenance or list assets whose sources are not sufficiently detailed, he said.

Similarly scores of leaders have failed to provide details on their spouse in the forms, citing bank accounts information, while others fail to list gifts received and not declared, he elaborated, noting that due to those flaws the secretariat asked some eligible officials to amend their declarations.

They were required to conduct a review of assets and debts in line with the law governing public leadership ethics and asset declaration, he stated, highlighting that the state of submission of asset and debt declarations form for various top government officials is satisfactory.

For the past five years the average rate of submission has been pegged at 96 percent of eligible officials annually, a much higher level of compliance compared to 77 percent submissions on average, from 2009 to 2020.

The changed situation partially arises from efforts of the secretariat to provide education about the law on ethics and the importance of declaring resources and debts, administered among various groups in the public service, he said..

Steps taken by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to ensure that leaders observe ethics requirements “contributed immensely to make leaders responsible to submit their declarations on time,” he stated.

The secretariat has been communicating with appointing authorities to ensure that all leaders, including new ones are aware of the importance of returning declarations on time, for the forms’ submission  rate to reach 100 percent, he said,

Until June 2023, a total of 13,485 declarations or 87 percent of 15,556 declarations had been received and analysed compared to 7,732 asset declarations in 2019/2020, he remarked, affirming that there was a decrease in defective declarations per year on average

In 2019/20 defective declarations were 24 percent of the total while in 2022/23 they had decreased to 14 percent, with a key defect financial information of their bank assets, he specified, citing debt information, partial information like amounts of money they owe without showing who exactly owes the cash.