TANZANIA BUSINESS LEADERS DENOUNCE GRAFT

CEOrt Chairman, Mr Ali Mufuruki

BUSINESS leaders have underscored the need for promotion of accountability, transparency and efficiency in the public and private sectors for the country to beat poverty and succeed in all development programmes.

"There will never be big results...anytime if corruption and other abuses are rife in the country," Mr Ali Mufuruki, Chairman of the CEO Roundtable of Tanzania (CEOrt) told a news conference in Dar es Salaam late Tuesday.

Mr Mufuruki commended various initiatives by the government and other strakeholders in promoting ethical behaviour, patriotism, accoutability and good governance in the country at the monthly CEOrt forum.

CEOrt is a policy dialogue forum whose objective is to create a platform for captains of industry to constructively engage the government with the vision of creating a more conducive environment for businesses to prosper and contribute to Tanzania's economic growth.

Founded in 2000, CEOrt brings together over 100 organisations doing business in Tanzania and its members account for more than 40 per cent of the tax revenue collected by the government.

Dr George Njenga, Dean of the Nairobi-based Strathmore Business School, said good ethical practices was crucial among the leaders for sucessful economic growth in African countries.

Dr Njenga stressed that African leaders must be patriotic and embrace ethics to be successful. "They must display love of their continent, respect constitutions and laws that govern rules and regulations of business," Dr Njenga said and strongly denounced corruption in the society.

He called for promotion of education and training of youth in Africa, saying that was the best way in grooming leaders on the continent. "Africa is the continent of young people, unfortunately most of them lacked education and training. This is the recipe for disaster," Dr Njenga said.