Why Magufuli administration misses the point on Government splurge

Na: *Mh Tundu Lissu*

Pesa za mifuko ya hifadhi ya jamii hazitajenga kiwanda chochote. Ni siasa tu. Pesa za mifuko ya hifadhi ya umma sio pesa za serikali, ni pesa za wafanyakazi. Zinatokana na makato yao ya mishahara. Serikali imekuwa inatumia pesa hizi kama zake, wakati sio zake. Pesa hizo zimetumika kujenga UDOM kwa makubaliano kwamba serikali hii ingerudisha pesa hizo kwa mifuko hiyo. Haijarudisha hata senti moja. Pesa hizo zimejenga jengo la Usalama wa Taifa OysterBay Dar. Serikali haijarudisha hata senti moja kwa mifuko ilikochota pesa hizo. Pesa za mifuko zimejenga jengo la Machinga Complex Ilala Dar na nyumba za polisi Kurasini Dar. Serikali haijarudisha hata senti moja. Ndizo zilizojenga Daraja la Mwalimu Nyerere Kigamboni. You can rest assured haitarudi hata senti moja. Ukweli, kama alivyosema CAG kwenye mojawapo ya taarifa zake za mwaka, mifuko ya hifadhi ya jamii ina hali mbaya ya kifedha. Hii ndio sababu wenye mamlaka wanataka kuondoa fao la kujitoa. Wameigeuza mifuko ya hifadhi ya jamii kuwa shamba la bibi mpaka mifuko inakaribia kufilisika. Sasa wanataka kuficha uchafu huu kwa blangeti la uzalendo uchwara. Wafanyakazi wa Tanzania wakikubali udanganyifu huu wataliwa kama ambavyo pesa zao zimeliwa kwenye miradi niliyoitaja. Suala sio tuache siasa. Hatuwezi kuacha siasa. Suala ni tuache siasa za aina gani. Hawa wanasiasa wanaojivika uzalendo uchwara kuhusu hela za wafanyakazi wao wenyewe wametengenezewa utaratibu maalum ambapo wanakatwa na NSSF halafu baada ya kumaliza ubunge wanarudishiwa pesa zao. Hawasubiri wafikishe miaka sitini ndipo wapate mafao yao ya kujitoa. Halafu wanawahubiria wafanyakazi wasubiri miaka sitini ndipo wapate mafao yao. Wana ndimi mbili kama za nyoka. *Wafanyakazi wa Tanzania amkeni, hamna chochote cha kupoteza isipokuwa minyororo yenu.

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VIJANA watano wamefikishwa
mahakamani kwa tuhuma za
kumdhalilisha Rais Dk. John
Magufuli na Jeshi la Polisi
kutokana na mauaji ya askari polisi
wanne waliouawa na majambazi
katika eneo la Mbande na Vikindu,
Dar es Salaam hivi karibuni.
Washtakiwa hao walifikishwa jana
katika Mahakama ya Hakimu Mkazi
Kisutu, Dar es Salaam mbele ya
mahakimu watano tofauti na
kusomewa mashtaka na Wakili wa
Serikali, Salum Mohammed.
Walisomewa mashtaka mbele ya
Hakimu Mkazi Mkuu, Emmilius
Mchauru, Huruma Shahidi,
Margareth Bankika, Dk. Yohana
Yongolo na Respicius Mwijage.
Akisomewa mashtaka, mshtakiwa
Dennis Mtegwa anadaiwa Agosti 24,
mwaka huu eneo la Ubungo
External kupitia mtandao wa
WhatsApp, aliweka maoni katika
group linaloitwa Dsm 11 4u
Movement, akisema‘JPM sijui
anawaza nini kichwani… hata
samahani hajui au nilikosea
hajui’, ‘nchi imefika hapa kwa
sababu ya mtu mmoja aliyeamua
kujilipua ufahamu wake’, ‘sijaona
tatizo kwa hilo, ila kwa huyu
bwana misimamo ambaye
amesema msinijaribu na ilhali
kajaribiwa na ubwabwa wa jubilee
kusema yote’.
‘Siasa si chuki wala upinzani si
uadui, ajifunze kushindana kwa
hoja sio mitutu ya bunduki na
mazoezi yasiyo na kichwa wala
miguu ya polis i’.
Mshtakiwa Suleiman Saidi
anadaiwa Agosti 25, mwaka huu
maeneo ya Kigogo, kwa kutumia
mtandao wa Facebook,
aliandika ‘Safi sana aisee, mi
naona wangekufa kama 20 hivi
halafu Simon Sirro tumuulize
mazoezi wanafanyia wake zao au’.
Katika kesi nyingine, mshtakiwa
Juma Mtatuu akiwa eneo la Ocean
Road, Agosti 24, mwaka huu
anadaiwa kuwa alituma ujumbe
katika Facebook akisema ‘Huyu
hata akifa ataenda peponi, na
kufanya mazoezi kote kule
wamekufa Mbagala, mimi
nitakuwa wa kwanza kuandamana
kule Kahama, tarehe moja
naelekea Kahama kwa Ukuta,
mimi nitakuwa namba moja
kushika bendera ya Ukuta, kifo
kipo tuu, usiogope kwani mawe
na mapanga yameisha’
.

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Tanesco loses big IPTL lawsuit

ORDERED TO PAY $148M: Washington-based tribunal rules in favour of Standard Chartered Bank, saying dubious payments from the Tegeta escrow account do not discharge TANESCO's obligations to the bank








TANESCO ordered to pay
$148m over IPTL dispute


Washington-based tribunal rules in favour of Standard Chartered Bank, saying dubious payments made from the Tegeta escrow account to businessman Harbinder Singh Sethi do not discharge TANESCO's obligations to the bank


By Guardian Reporter


THE Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO) has suffered a massive blow in its protracted legal dispute with Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) after a World Bank tribunal last week ordered the state-owned power utility to pay Standard Chartered Bank-Hong Kong (SCB-HK) $148.4 million (over 320 billion shillings) plus interest in outstanding capacity charges.
The ruling comes nearly three years since the government controversially authorised payments of over $200 million (440 billion/-) from TANESCO-IPTL’s Tegeta escrow account to businessman Harbinder Singh Sethi’s Pan Africa Power Solutions Tanzania Limited (PAP).
This was after SCB-HK purchased the IPTL loan at a discount price of $76.1 million from Malaysia’sDanaharta Bankin August 2005, following the latter’s failure to secure its outstanding loan from IPTL.
The actual face value of the debt was $101.7 million, according to available evidence. IPTL borrowed over $100 million in 1998 from a consortium of Malaysian banks in order to finance construction of its 100-megawatt Tegeta power generating plant.
Under that transaction, SCB-HK was assigned a number of contracts, including the 1997 Security Deed, the Implementation Agreement and the Guarantee Agreement concluded between IPTL and the Tanzanian government. The available details show that SCB-HK also became the Security Agent under the Share Pledge Agreement and the Shareholder Support Deed.
Part of the agreement said: “As Security Agent, SCB HK holds all of IPTL’s ‘right, title and interest in and to the Assigned Contracts, including all moneys which may at any time be or become payable to the Borrower.’”
TANESCO had earlier taken its dispute with IPTL to the World Bank-affiliated International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) for arbitration after the state-owned power utility discovered that it was being overcharged in both capacity and energy charges.
Following this move, both parties agreed as stipulated in their 1996 Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to establish an escrow account with the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), to be used to deposit all payments pending the outcome of the arbitration.
But a few months before ICSID issued its ruling, the government controversially (and secretly?) paid all the escrow money to PAP after the company claimed that it had acquired full 100 per cent ownership of IPTL in September 2013.
The Washington-based ICSID ruled in favour of TANESCO in February 2014, ordering a tariff recalculation so that finally the escrow money could be paid to either IPTL or the power utility firm, only to then be informed that a third party (PAP) had already been paid everything.
SCB-HK took TANESCO to the ICSID after it realised that the money in the escrow account has been paid to PAP at a time when there was still another pending case over the tariff dispute.
The bank was demanding outstanding payments to clear a loan taken by IPTL’s initial owners to set up the electricity generating turbines.
The Hong Kong-based bank took over control of IPTL after the company failed to pay its loan in 2008, and has since then been fighting to recover the debt.
And after more than five years of rigorous legal proceedings, ICSID judges have now finally ruled in favour of the bank.
"The tribunal orders that TANESCO pay to SCB-HK (Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong) the amount of $148.4 million with simple interest at three month LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) plus 4 per cent from September 30, 2015 until the date of this award," ICSID said in its latest ruling.
"Interest shall continue at the same rate until full payment is received," the ruling added.

DUBIOUS ESCROW ACCOUNT PAYMENTS

ICSID also ruled that payments made by the government from the infamous Tegeta Escrow Account "did not discharge TANESCO's obligations under the power purchase agreement (PPA) and thus cannot be used to reduce the amount that TANESCO owes SCB HK."
TANESCO paid more than $120 million from the IPTL Tegeta Escrow Account to Pan African Power Solutions (PAP)under dubious circumstancesin 2013.
The escrow account payments triggered a major national corruption scandal which ultimately led to the resignations of at least three senior ministers in then president JakayaKikwete's government.
A number of other senior government officials were also charged with corruption at the Kisuturesident magistrate's court over the IPTL escrow account scam.
Lawyers representing Standard Chartered Bank at the arbitration accused TANESCO of misleading the ICSID tribunal judges by concealing facts about the payments made from the escrow account to PAP.
"SCB-HK understands that PAP used $75 million of the funds obtained from the escrow account to pay VIP Engineering and Marketing Limited (owned by Tanzanian businessman James Rugemalira) for its 30 per cent shareholding in IPTL," says part of the 100-page ruling.
"The funds held in the escrow account that should have been available to satisfy TANESCO's payment obligations to IPTL under the PPA (power purchase agreement) have therefore been paid to two Tanzanian parties - VIP and PAP - neither of whom made any financial contribution to the construction of the facility," it adds.
The ruling seen by The Guardian was dispatched to the parties involved in the arbitration - Standard Chartered Bank and TANESCO - on September 12 this year.
The ICSID is part of the World Bank Group and is funded by the Bretton Woods institution. It is headquartered in Washington, DC, in the United States.
An ICSID award is binding on all parties to the proceeding and each party must comply with it.
If a party fails to comply with the award, the other party can seek to have the pecuniary obligations recognised and enforced in the courts of any ICSID member state as though it were a final judgment of that state’s courts.
Members of the tribunal that issued the award in favour of Stanchartwere Prof Donald McRae (president), Prof Zachary Douglas (arbitrator), and Prof Brigitte Stern (arbitrator).
In the arbitration process, the bank was represented by a team of lawyers from two London-based law firms - Herbert Smith Freehills LLP and Linklaters LLP.
TANESCO was represented by a team of lawyers from Tanzanian-based law firms R.K. Rweyongeza& Co. Advocates and Crax Law Partners, and a Zurich-based law firm KellerhalsCarrard.
ICSID ruled that each party should bear its own legal fees and expenses.

ends

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Rutashubanyuma said:

We have always been long on applauding both the effort and intent but short in appraising the effectiveness of drastic measures declared and vigorously pursued by our post colonial administrations.

Nyerere was lauded for Azimio la Arusha but he later admitted the policy tools and directions were faulty, and economic decimation was all too much of an eyesore to all of us. The legacy of Nyerere administration will always be soiled by sheer levels of economic mismanagements despite genuine efforts to address causes and effects of our underdevelopment.

Mwinyi administration was accorded a red carpet reverence for the frantic effort to undo "Nyerereism" via the antithesis of the Zanzibar declaration but we all know better the indigenization of our economy took a back seat as the economy was placed in grubby hands of aliens.

Mkapa administration cemented official graft while its successive administration of Jakaya Kikwete approved it in all its pernicious forms.

Then comes Magufuli administration while a couple of weeks in office seems lacking ideas of how to reform the government, and has so far been generating plenty of heat but very little substance.

Sweeteners may taste good on mouth but in the stomach are likely to foment gastric juice notorious for corroding the intestines. What this nation needs is reforms on good governance where accountability has been sacrificed at the altar of nepotism and sycophancy.

We need to restore pre-independence accountability if we are to reach where a president has no business to snatch duties and responsibilities of his juniors but to oversee them.

For start, he needs to acknowledge NEC ought to be fully investigated by an impartial commission how it conducted this election despite its numerous vain claims that the election was free, fair and transparent. We need a legislation to empower that commission but we also need the same commission to investigate thoroughly how this very partisan police interfered with the electoral process. We cannot face another election where UKAWA are adamant they were shortchanged and we have a president who may or may not be a squatter at our IKULU pretending to bribe us with "peremende" and expect for a different result.

On government splurge, we need concrete policies and pieces of legislation like capping staff emoluments based on a ratio of recurrent expenditure. What I have seen; so far, is a battle of nomenclatures which past administrations fought with equal zeal but lost because they never identified policy tools to do it.

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Mafiningo said:

Rutashiba nyuma

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