HakiElimu ORGANIZATION has called on the government to take action against all the parties mentioned in the embezzlement identified in the report of the Auditor and Controller General of Government Accounts (CAG) in the report of the year 2021/2022.

The Executive Director of HakiElimu, Dr. John Kalage speaking today May 9, 2023 in Dar es Salaam said despite the government improving the education environment, but there are major challenges that could be solved with funds that have been wasted by some public institutions and organizations as stated in the report of CAG and caused the government a loss of Shs 813.5 billion.

Dr. Kalage has said that if the funds for Covid-19, the Ministry of Education received an allocation of Sh 300 billion and succeeded in building 12,000 classrooms in secondary schools, 3,000 education centers and 50 dormitories for students with special needs, Sh 813.5 billion would be controlled and could build the infrastructure of the sector of education more than twice the infrastructure built with Covid 19 funds and would reduce the challenges of the education sector.

"People are squandering money, they are wasteful and they are on the street and they are not taken any action, that is why everyone who is given an opportunity sees where he can eat," said Dr. Kalage and added: "With the efforts of the government to open the country, mothers go there and there to ask for aid and loans, but the money is put into empty pockets, most of the executives do not do the intended work, we will burden our children and grandchildren with huge debts in the years to come.

"And this comes because we don't have priorities, every leader who comes into power comes with his own priorities regardless of what his partner left behind, we have been wasting the resources of this country by not investing in one priority, for example in Korea they have been successful because there is a strong policy, any leader who comes in prioritizes what he finds, he goes with it until the end.

"And here it is, there should be a policy that will force any leader who comes in to manage the existing priority until the end, we evaluate whether it has been successful or not, and if it has not been successful, why?

"There is a detailed evaluation... The Ministry of Education for five years has been allocated a small budget that is not sufficient when a lot of money is wasted as shown in the CAG report," he said.

Analyzing the CAG report, Dr. Kalage says that the report shows that there are many loopholes in the misuse of public funds and major weaknesses in the collection of government revenue and that these challenges could be addressed properly, a lot of money could be saved and directed to the development of the nation including the settlement of the challenges of the education sector.

"For example, according to the CAG 2021/2022 report, 88.42 billion shs given as loans to groups of young people, women and people with disabilities in 180 local government authorities were not returned, 98 authorities did not submit the amount of 15.9 billion shs collected from various sources of income and Sh 8.99 billion were loaned by the council but were not returned.

The CAG report also shows that the local government authorities failed to collect the Shs 76.56 billion they were supposed to collect from the income of cages, fees, taxes and licenses.

He said that the report shows waste in some big projects such as the National Railway Corporation (TRC) caused a loss of 503.2 billion shs by rejecting a bidder who wanted to be paid 616.4 billion shs and giving the work to a bidder worth 1.119 trillion shs equal to an increase of 82 percent which was not necessary.

He has also clarified that the CAG report has shown that 632 million shillings of the EP4R project were lost in the construction of the new Sumbawanga teaching college costing 3 billion shs. The report also shows that more than 50 billion shs were used to buy ventilators in the health sector.

"The CAG statement also identifies waste in the Ministry of Construction which did not collect 41.4 billion shs that was supposed to be charged when transporting heavy goods, while the Real Estate Agency (TBA) and the Court also did not charge 8.43 billion shs when providing services as they should.

The report also states that Central Government Institutions spent Shs 3.39 billion while Local Government Authorities spent Shs 26.28 billion to buy air vehicles," he said and added: "These few areas of the CAG report show that more than Shs 813.5 billion have been lost, if the government has spent Shs 353.4 billion allocation funds for the fight against Covid-19 were able to build 12,000 classrooms in secondary schools, 3,000 education centers and 50 dormitories for students with special needs, 813.5 billion Shs would have been controlled and could build the infrastructure of the education sector more than twice the infrastructure built with Covid 19 funds.”