CORRUPTION STILL RAMPANT IN TANZANIA

August 2011

By Elias Mhegera

CORRUPTION remains a serious social enigma in Tanzania despite so much effort from various stakeholders to get rid of this problem according to the recent survey.

The 2009 study by Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), being the latest indicates that the citizenry al large knows that corruption is a serious problem and a hindrance to the social services.

The Tanzania National Governance and Corruption Survey (NGACS) 2009 is a baseline survey. The purpose of this survey was to solicit information and foster public awareness about national governance and corruption issues.

The Public Officials survey of NGACS was focused at studying the environment relating to the delivery of services in public offices with special emphasis on public sector governance as well as corruption. The survey examined public employee perceptions.

It wanted to know factors affecting workers in course of their duties to the extent of causing them to take bribes. In that respect according to the survey   one third of public officials do not consider poverty as a source of corruption.

However the following were considered by more than two thirds as causes of corruption; greed/selfishness 96.6 percent, high cost of living 79.3 percent, poor remuneration 83 percent, lack of control and accountability of public officials 81.2 percent while lack of independent and effective judiciary was put at 69.3 percent.

The survey indicates that other sources of corruption were considered as moral indecency 90.9 percent, poor leadership 78.5 percent, lack of effective corruption reporting system 80.6, and poor law enforcement or punishment of the corrupt 85.2 percent.

Furthermore, a little over two thirds 65.9 percent expressed the opinion that corruption does not lead to giving better services.

The study revealed that public officials rated multinational companies at 63.9 percent in soliciting bribes while unscrupulous businesspersons were rated at 64.8 as the top two.

Public officials were requested to state how frequently a selected list of corrupt practices occurred in contracting processes. The list includes technical deviation of the contract, contractor monopolies, and modifying the terms of the contract to favour the interest of a company, contracting with fictitious or nonexistent, presenting offers from non existent competitors.

To this extent bribery is used to award contracts, and Bid rigging. The survey revealed that over one third of public officials fall in this category. The Police Force and Ministry of Lands happened to be the most condemned by the respondents due to discrepancies that are committed by their officials.

The extremes are Mara region expressing the highest dissatisfaction and Ruvuma region with a majority of Public Officials happy with the Police Forces’ performance. 

Again in the Lake Victoria zone, including Shinyanga, Kigoma and northern regions was found to have the highest percent of public officials reporting that the Police force is completely dishonest and/or dishonest, while again south western zone had the lowest percent. The northern zone, including Morogoro region show the same pattern as that of the Lake Victoria zone.

On recommendations to be followed the report suggested that public institutions should be required to demonstrate that they strictly follow the existing legal and regulatory framework  

It also suggested that the Government must demonstrably take stern measures against those public servants who perpetrate corruption. In the similar bid, the Government and its complement of public servants need to instill the culture of ‘information management’, to monitor and evaluate, on a regular basis.

The report has also suggested that the Government put in place an effective complaint mechanism to enable ordinary citizens to expose those public officials who act with impunity and with utter disregard as to the laid down regulations.