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I will not resign -Hoseah
2008-02-16 09:24:51
By Judica Tarimo, Zanzibar
The Director General of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), Edward Hoseah, yesterday broke silence and said he had not submitted a resignation letter to the President.
Hoseah is among top ranking public officials who were implicated in the findings of a House Select Committee on the Richmond emergency power supply contract.
He was specifically singled out for his controversial announcement as PCCB head that the Richmond contract had no trace of corruption.
The select committee which tabled its findings in Parliament last week recommended that Hoseah should be taken to task for whitewashing the dubious contract.
Some top ranking personalities who were implicated in the scam resigned as soon as the select committee report was tabled.
These include former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa and two other cabinet ministers—Nazir Karamagi and Ibrahim Msabaha.
The parliamentary select committee also recommended the total restructuring of the anti-corruption watchdog`s management.
Yesterday, Parliament endorsed the call for Hosea`s resignation and that of other PCCB officers who took part in preparing the watchdog`s disputed report on the Richmond contract.
Speaking yesterday in Zanzibar, Hoseah said: If I wanted to resign, I would not have been here today at this meeting.``
The PCCB boss spoke to a handful of reporters on the sidelines of a meeting on corruption organized by anti-corruption units and institutions from across East Africa.
``They are free to judge me. My President knows me. He knows my work and my competency. He trusts me. He is the one to decide on this issue,`` said Hoseah.
He said PCCB had made thorough investigations on the Richmond contract in accordance with laws governing his organization and found that there was no trace of corruption in the agreement.
``I want the public to understand that my task, as stipulated by law, is to investigate corruption elements in a contract. Our concern was not whether the contract was bad or not. The law mandates the institution to investigate corruption elements and not anything else. We did not discover corruption elements in the contract,`` the PCCB head said.
``But if they want to pass judgement, I have no problem. They can do so. It should be understood that the rule of law must prevail in this country,`` he said.
``No matter how sensitive the Richmond issue is, the rule of law must prevail. The Richmond contract should be looked in the context of the corruption law and not any other criteria,`` Hosea said.
He, however, admitted that investigating Richmond was a complicated exercise since it involved influential and powerful personalities.
``Grand corruption involves big people, who are economically powerful, people who own newspapers. So fighting corruption is not as easy as people think.
Fighting corruption means interfering with cakes of these powerful individuals,`` he said.
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