MOMENT OF TRUTH AS BUNGE READIES FOR ESCROW REPORT

Speaker Anne Makinda speaks during a parliamentary session in Dodoma yesterday.   PHOTO | EMMANUEL HERMAN 

By The Citizen Team 

Dodoma/Dar es Salaam. Come tomorrow and the moment of truth will have arrived with regard to the controversial Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) escrow account scandal that has kept the nation in suspense for the past eight months.

 Despite concerted attempts within and outside the corridors of State power to keep the report under wraps, Speaker of the National Assembly Anna Makinda yesterday gave the assurance that it would be tabled in Parliament tomorrow.

So as to avail the MPs ample time, said the Speaker, there would be three days starting tomorrow to debate the eagerly awaited escrow scam documents.  She further said she had instructed the police that the man arrested for breaking into Parliament offices and stealing some documents on escrow should remain in custody until the report is tabled, debated and concluded.

As the Speaker gave the assurance, fierce campaigns were raging outside the august House in a bid to discredit the report and those who have been championing the investigation on the scandal.

 Yesterday, a section of the media carried stories based on a bogus escrow report, which purports that no one had been adversely implicated—complete with a rider that even the Sh306 billion figure claimed to be Tanesco’s money was a lie, and that money was property of IPTL/Pan Africa Power Solutions Tanzania Limited (PAP).

But, yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman, Mr Zitto Kabwe, dismissed the leak as fake and sheer propaganda aimed at defending those implicated in the multibillion shillings rip-off.

 “It’s a fake circulated online to shift the attention of the debate on the real Tegeta escrow account…if those who supported the deal believe they did the right thing, then they need not panic,” Mr Kabwe told The Citizen over the phone.

One Kiswahili tabloid, which published a pro-IPTL story in almost all its pages yesterday, claimed that the move by Mr Kabwe to table the report as planned would plunge the Parliament into a constitutional crisis.

Some legislators received reports on Sunday night that bore malicious accusations against the Kigoma North MP and PAC chairman. Some of the MPs who received the smear campaign documents are nominated MP James Mbatia (NCCR-Mageuzi) and Musoma urban legislator Stephen Nyerere (Chadema).

 Unknown people on Sunday night distributed copies to MPs whose residences they could reach and left copies of accusations against the PAC boss at their doorsteps.

Earlier, the cash PAP collected was put at $122 million (Sh207 billion), but the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report has clarified that the amount was actually Sh306 billion.

 This means that even after PAP chief executive chairman, Harbinder Singh Sethi, pocketed a whopping Sh207 billion, the cash-strapped power utility would still have to pay him a further Sh100 billion, which was not deposited in the escrow account.

At the centre of the scandal are two major issues: whether PAP legally acquired the 70 per cent of IPTL shares from a Malaysian company, Mechmar, as claimed by Mr Sethi and the second is whether the escrow monies belonged to the government.

 But preliminary reports from the CAG show that the forensic audit has proved that since Tanesco was being overcharged for years, the recalculation of tariff based on the new formula issued by international arbitrator—International Centre for Settlements of Investments Disputes (ICSID)—means that all the escrow monies were supposed to be paid back to the state-owned power utility.

The CAG audit has also confirmed that PAP never legally acquired 70 per cent of IPTL from Mechmar as repeatedly claimed by Mr Sethi and allies.

The man behind the unofficial distribution of copies of the Controller and Auditor General’s report which is expected to be tabled in Parliament tomorrow is one Mohammed Mbarouk, it The Citizen has learnt.

Investigations by this paper revealed that Mr Mbarouk lives in Dar es Salaam and is known to be a person who likes to hang around outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Information, Sports and Culture.

Yesterday, Mr Mbarouk became a point of discussion in Parliament with the Speaker Makinda saying the man had embarrassed the august House.

Speaking in Parliament, Ubungo MP John Mnyika claimed that the suspect was a close friend of Energy and Minerals minister Sospeter Muhongo.

But so far it has not been officially established whether the man behind bars is indeed a close friend of Prof Muhongo, apart from the fact that the two attended the same primary school.

But Dodoma Regional Police Commander David Misime yesterday declined to reveal the identity of the suspect on the reasoning that doing so could jeopardise the ongoing investigations.

Opposition MPs forming the Coalition of Defenders of People’s Constitution (Ukawa) claimed at the weekend that the CAG report had leaked even as PAC continued to ready it for tabling tomorrow.

Ukawa pleaded with the RPC to arrest and take appropriate legal action against the suspect that they linked with Prof Muhongo who is said to have been implicated in the CAG report.

Yesterday, Mr Misime told The Citizen that police were investigating the authenticity of the leaked document and that the suspect was still in the police custody pending the completion of investigations.

He said the law enforcers were also trying to find out if the suspect had any links with any of those implicated in the Tegeta escrow deal as claimed by some MPs.

CREDIT SOURCE: THE CITIZEN