PCCB now features on corruption list

Dar es Salaam. The police, Tanzania Revenue Authority and the Judiciary remain the most corrupt sectors in the country, says a new corruption perception study. Most Tanzanians now believe that corruption increased in the last one year, with the police, tax officials and judges and magistrates leading the pack as the most corrupt public servants. While the police have topped the corruption list in many studies for many years,  including by several other agencies and international corruption watchdogs, the judiciary and the Tax man have lately climbed the chart.

According to the Afrobarometer study findings released yesterday, 67 per cent of Tanzanians say corruption increased between 2013 and 2014. Only 13 per cent think the vice decreased.

The study conducted between August and September 2014 by sampling 2,386 respondents revealed that perception is much worse in Zanzibar, with a whopping 93 per cent of the respondents saying corruption increased in the Isles last year.

Some 58 per cent of Tanzanians also said the government was handling the fight against corruption “fairly badly” or “very badly”.  The study was carried out in the year that the Tegeta escrow account scandal, first exposed by The Citizen, rocked the country even though it was done before Parliament debated and resolved the Sh306 billion power scandal.

In the study, police ranked the highest corrupt public office with a score of 50 per cent of the respondents followed by TRA officials and local government agents at 37 per cent while judges and magistrates came third with 36 per cent.

The integrity level of tax authorities remains a matter of concern for the public. The record in the new report mirrored on another Afrobarometer study conducted between 2011 to 2013 that blamed the tax man’s integrity as the reason for non-compliance of paying tax in the country.

The past study showed that two out of every 10 Tanzanians simply refused to pay tax, the highest default among 29 sub-Saharan countries surveyed.

Meanwhile, the office tasked to fight the vice in the country -- Prevention and Combatting of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) -- also featured on the list of shame, with 29 per cent of respondents saying PCCB officials are also corrupt.

The President’s Office, according to the study, is perceived as the lowest corrupt public office with only 14 per cent followed by Members of Parliament (MPs) who got 25 per cent. The President’s office is, however, not audited according to the law.

Others listed are government officials (25 per cent), local government councillors (25 per cent), non state leaders listed are business executives (31 per cent) traditional leaders (13 per cent) and religious leaders (10 per cent). “Although there are some changes here and there, things are almost the same as they were ten years ago,” said Ms Rose Aiko who presented the study findings yesterday. She is also director of Governance and Service Delivery at Policy Research for Development (Repoa).

PCCB’s Community Education director Mary Mosha, said it was not true that the government was not handling well the fight against corruption. She said a number of interventions which involved all stakeholders are being employed, but the public only wants to see culprits taken to court.

“The perceptions are not 100 pc correct, the study was conducted before the escrow scandal debate rocked Parliament, and if the survey was to be held after the debate I strongly believe the numbers would have been much higher,” she said.  Government Watch Programme Officer at the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) Hussein Sengu, said the level of perceived corruption in the President’s Office does not really reflect the reality on the ground.