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Reps press for more investigations into ZECO funds scam
2006-07-17 08:53:51
By Issa Yussuf, Zanzibar
Members of the Zanzibar House of Representatives have pressed for further investigations into allegations of embezzlement of public funds at the Zanzibar Electricity Company (ZECO) after only five members of staff were charged in court.
Debating the Ministry of Water, Construction, Energy, and Land 2006/2007 budget estimates on Wednesday and Thursday, members of the House, particularly those from the opposition expressed their dissatisfaction on the way the fraud allegations in the state company were done.
Shadow Minister of Water, Construction, Energy, and Land in the House, Hamad Masoud Hamad raised concern over the financial record in ZECO, reiterating the opposition’s demands to have an independent probe commission.
’’The opposition camp in the House demands the ZECO allegation probe team report to be presented in the House, because the chief Minister promised.
I hope that even members of the House members from the opposition camp have been irked by the loss of millions of funds in the Company,’’ Masoud said.
He said the probe team which included six members from the ZECO and two members from the ministry used more than 30m/- for the 45 days of investigations.
’’This amount is questionable, I believe if we had an independent probe team formed by members of the House, it would have used not more than 10m/- for the work.’’
’’This is a public concern. How can institution investigate itself, and spend 30m/-!’’ Masoud queried.
Masoud who was once an employee of the ministry, before joining the opposition, said suspending from work some members of the staff, including general manager, and transferring some staff, did is meaningless and a justification of not being transparency.
He said that theft in the company was also identified by an Information Technology (IT) expert from South Africa, who had discovered that several payment vouchers had been tampered with, ’’I doubt whether the minister was not aware of the cheating on computer records!’’ he said.
After the allegations of fraud in the ZECO were revealed by some of the staff members, the opposition camp in the House unsuccessfully demanded for the formation of the an independent probe team to study the allegations.
But the Zanzibar Chief Minister Shamsi Vuai Nahodha later promised that he would work on the allegations and reveal the findings in Parliament.
However, no statement has been made by the Chief Minister in the House yet, but the five former employees including the former general manager of ZECO have been arrested and charged with stealing more than 500m/- on different occasions.
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