Mwinyi plans impromptu visits to public offices
ZANZIBAR President, Hussein Mwinyi is set to make impromptu visits to the ministries in the Isles as part of his efforts to increase accountability, efficiency and improve work ethics.
“I plan to start making abrupt visits to restore confidence in public institutions by focusing on civil servants’ work ethics and accountability. We would like to put to an end ‘business as usual’ syndrome in public sector,” vowed Dr Mwinyi.
Speaking in separate occasions, this week in a meeting with journalists and the ‘Controller and Auditor General (CAG)’ of the National Audit of Tanzania Mr Charles Edward Kichere, Dr Mwinyi said reforms in public institutions are inevitable.
He told journalists that his government is committed to root out corruption, embezzlement of public funds and lack of accountability in public offices.
The President said that he will spare no efforts in achieving the objectives.
“I want to see a strong Zanzibar Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Authority supported by an active office of the Director of Public Prosecution and court to ensure justice,” Dr Mwinyi said.
The President on Tuesday appointed Mr Ali Abdalla Ali to fill the vacant position left by ZAECA Director General who resigned after the President asked the authority to make self-assessment on its performance due to an increase in theft incidents of government properties and economic sabotage.
He pledged to hand over the Zanzibar Controller and Auditor General (CAG) 2020/2021 report to the new ZAECA boss to allow an anti-graft body to thoroughly investigate all the issues raised in the report and take appropriate actions.
In a separate meeting with CAG Kichere at the State House, President Mwinyi expressed his pleasure about a move to strengthen relations with Zanzibar counterpart in ensuring that all parastatals including Union government institutions operating in Zanzibar are audited.
“Collaboration between the two CAGs is very important in enhancing accountability. All institutions must be properly audited. For example, when the Immigration department in Zanzibar was audited, about 8bn/- was suspiciously missing, necessitating thorough investigation,” Dr Mwinyi said.
The Zanzibar CAG Dr Othman Abassi Ali said that there has been good cooperation between the two institutions, giving an example of recent collaboration, where the CAG from the Union government helped CAG Zanzibar to Audit some of the Union institutions, including Bank of Tanzania, Tanzania Revenue Authority and Embassy Offices.
“The CAG in Union government also helped us to conduct an audit on Zanzibar offices operating in Tanzania Mainland along with training executives from the CAG Zanzibar Office. The capacity building costs were provided by the Union government CAG Office,” Dr Ali said.
He said that in the near future, the CAGs both Union and Zanzibar government are expected to complete the process of signing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to cement the relations.
