Tanzania: The signs that define Samia Suhulu’s leadership style...

President Samia Suluhu Hassan made strong statements on Sunday that could define her leadership style, and also continuation of the government’s war on misuse of public funds, analysts said yesterday.

Receiving the audit report of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), as well as the performance report by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) for the 2019/20 financial year at the State House in Dodoma on Sunday, President Hassan ordered an investigation into the way the development funds were disbursed and spent in the third-quarter of the current financial year (January-March 2021).

President Hassan said she had read the executive summary of the CAG’s report which was submitted to her on Saturday evening and noted that there were a number of issues that needed to be worked on. She immediately suspended the Director General of the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA), Mr Deusdedit Kakoko, in connection with embezzlement of Sh3.6 billion at the institution as reported in the CAG report for the 2019/20 financial year.

President Hassan also promised to take action against heads of all other institutions that will have been found to have mismanaged public funds as soon as she gets the full picture of what was contained in the CAG’s report.

Turning to the PCCB’s performance report, President Hassan ordered the corruption watchdog to concentrate on its key responsibilities, and to drop baseless cases that end up tarnishing the reputation of the government by being thrown out of the law courts.

Politicians, economists and analysts in issues pertaining to good governance say the President’s statement portrayed the kind of a leader that she will be during his four-year and seven-month term.

Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) president Rugemeleza Nshala said the President Hassan was spot-on, and called for an overhaul of the entire criminal justice system.

“Baseless cases are just a small portion of much wider challenges facing the criminal justice system in Tanzania and changes are necessary, possibly overhauling the entire judicial system,” he said.

He said as lawyers, they had been working on a number of baseless cases where some of their clients spend up to six years in remand prison for some of the cases that were purely groundless.

“There are some elderly and some sick people in our prisons who are held inside for cases that are baseless and unbailable,” he said.

In his report to the President, the PCCB Director General, Brigadier General John Mbungo, said the PCCB had opened 1,079 case files in 2019/20 alone. That number was higher than the 911 files opened in the preceding year.

The cases largely related to tax evasion, violation of laws on expenditure of public funds, non-payment of farmers’ due by agricultural cooperatives, exorbitantly expensive loans issued to unwary citizens by unscrupulous individuals/institutions, and misappropriations of development funds.

Brigadier General Mbungo said 385 of those files related to bribes while 694 were on other offences.

“443 case files were forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), while 586 were sent to court. Judgment has been issued on 381 of the court cases, out of which the government won in 271,” he said.

In other words, PCCB had won 70.08 percent of all the cases it had taken to court in the 2019/20 financial year, up from 60.41 percent during the preceding year (FY-2018/2019).

WAJIBU Institute director and former CAG, Mr Ludovick Utouh said the President was right to direct PCCB to drop baseless cases because it was not an issue of how many cases you have. It’s what impact they have on society.

“It’s a matter of a cost/benefit analysis because a lot of resources are used by both parties in court proceedings and at the end, when the government loses in some cases, it does not reflect well on its (the government) image,” he said.

Reflecting on the President’s statement, Prof Mohammed Bakari of the University of Dar es Salaam’s Political Science Department said it will positively build the legitimacy of the new leader’s tenure rule and the fight against corruption.

“She was part of the preceding government so she knows a lot and maybe, she has information about some of the baseless cases, so her statement is significant and maybe it’s her way of finding a solution on the matter,” he said.

Prof Bakari however said that President Hassan now had a noble task of implementing what she had just hinted on, a development that would see a drop in baseless cases.

Politicians also gave thumbs-up to President Hassan’s statement, saying it was an indication that her leadership would be defined by the rule of law and one who would not make decision that affect some people’s lives without conducting a thorough analysis on issues that had been leveled against them.

“She is new and so she wants to get information from proper channels (institutions) and that is why she ordered the CAG to conduct an audit on the money released by Bank of Tanzania for financing development projects,” he told The Citizen yesterday.

He buys her views of conducting early audits in order to get clear information before making decisions, saying under normal circumstances, she would have waited until the next report which will be released in March 2022.

“I am happy that she took it as a matter of urgency because waiting until next year would be too long,” he said.

President Hassan, according to him, also wants more information on the local government authorities and the national computerized payment systems.

He, however, advised the President Hassan to start coming up with realistic national budgets, saying most of the past ones were unrealistic and overambitious.

He also recommended that the President Hassan government should avoid the temptation of coming up with new mega projects that have not been mentioned in the Five-Year Development Plan.

“All mega development projects must be those that have been outlined in the country’s development plans. The government should wait until the next budget or conduct a thorough discussion before deciding to implement new mega projects that have not been outlined in the development plans,” he said, pointing at the massive funds that were being spent on moving government offices to Dodoma as some of the projects that had never been outlined in the development plans.

The leader of ACT-Wazalendo, Mr Zitto Kabwe, said it was still too early to make a meaningful judgment on the kind of a leader President Hassan will be - noting, however, that by suspending, instead of firing, the TPA boss, President Hassan signaled that she would respect the rule of law in her leadership.

“Let us give her time. She has taken a different approach from those of her predecessors. She didn’t fire the TPA boss but she suspended the appointee pending investigations. This is how we operate in an environment where the way rule is respected,” he told The Citizen yesterday.

A member of the CCM National Executive Committee (NEC), Ms Angela Akilimali said much as it could take some time for some Tanzanians to understand the President’s leadership style, it was the party’s view that she would deliver.

“She looks calm and gentle but her authoritative actions are tough and are respected…Her actions taught us that we must not underestimate her. She touched on some of the people who had been praised in the past,” she said.

She believes that Ms Suluhu knew a lot of issues when she was the Vice President but she had no power to react against them.

A political analyst from the University of Dodoma, Dr Paul Luisulie, said the speech and actions of President Hassan reminded him of what once said was the reason for her joining politics.

“She once confessed that her desire to join the political arena was to rebuke the lying ministers in the Zanzibar House of Representative but he became part of the cabinet. She proved on Sunday that she doesn’t like lies and that is why she ordered the CAG to reveal the truth,” he said.

He believes that President Hassan will fill the gap of the late Magufuli in a different approach.

Economists say the President had portrayed herself to be the kind of a leader who does not condone lies and embezzlement of public funds. “This is why we saw her suspending the TPA director general and ordering audits in development expenditure,” said Delphin Rwegasira of the UDSM School of Economics.

President Hassan’s proposal to have the government’s payment systems harmonised was good and that it would result into the strengthening of the systems, according to another economist, Prof Samwel Wangwe.

“She has seen the importance of strengthening its payment systems instead of relying on a one man show approach. She wants to be sure that everything was okay,” he said.

Another University of Dar es Salaam economist, Dr Abel Kinyondo, said President Hassan’s speech on Sunday clearly showed her direction towards promoting transparency and good governance, stressing that she had no intention of protecting legacy but ensuring the country was led along the right path.
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Reported by Josephine Christopher, Alfred Zacharia and Rosemary Mirondo

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