Tanzanian President, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli says corruption cannot be fought successfully without the involvement of the general public. He however hastened to add that it also needs decisive action from the top leadership in the country.
Magufuli’s intolerance for corruption has won him attention and admiration within East Africa and worldwide two years after he took office as President of Tanzania.
Dr. Magufuli told a joint press conference at State lodge Masaka that corruption had partly persisted in Tanzanian because the past leadership did not face it squarely.
Speaking dominantly in Swahili, Magufuli said that when he took office in November 2017, he immediately slapped a ban on foreign travels by government officers and Ministers and that any travel would have to be sanctioned by a permit from himself.
Dr. Magufuli said he has personally limited his travels abroad as an example to his ministers and public servants.
He said fighting corruption also requires direction and determination by the top leadership like the Presidency and it also requires the leader to enforce it.
The press conference almost turned into an anti-corruption lecture as Dr. Magufuli outlined what his leadership has done in fighting corruption.
President Yoweri Museveni was attentively listening while some government officers present would occasionally clap and stamp their feet on the ground as Magufuli went on outlining some of the benefits from his intolerance against corruption and corrupt officers.
He said money saved from purging government of ghost workers, restricted travels abroad and other anti-corruption initiatives has been used to increase the country’s development budget from 26 percent to 40 percent.
Magufuli said it is from such savings that the government of Tanzania is funding its 726 kilometer Standard Gauge Railway at a cost of 7.1 trillion Tanzanian shillings.
President Yoweri Museveni was impressed by Magufuli’s lectures that he added;
“His Excellence Magufuli has given us new impetus in the fight against corruption. Even I am picking up some things from him that you will start seeing in the coming days.”
Museveni personally admitted and congratulated Dr. Magufuli’s intolerance against the corrupt.
Museveni said Magufuli is succeeding in the war on corruption because he is not entertaining bureaucratic methods when dealing with the corrupt.
Dr. Magufuli however says corruption is yet to be eliminated from Tanzania but he said it is being fought heavily.
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