PAC Chairman, Zitto Kabwe.
Dar es Salaam. Members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) claim they are being intimidated by powerful politicians with vested interest in the Tegeta escrow account saga.
According to a statement released yesterday by PAC chairman Zitto Kabwe, the hate messages aimed at mudslinging and preventing the committee from tabling a report by the Controller and Auditor General on the controversy are being circulated among MPs and the general public through social media.
The committee’s report scheduled for tabling at the end of this month is poised to shed light on what transpired in the withdrawal of $122 million (Sh207 billion) from the Tegeta escrow account to purportedly pay for the sale of IPTL to a private company.
Even though the content of the report has not been made public, insiders say the investigation is likely to send shock waves within the corridors of power owing to the positions of those implicated in the controversial deal.
Among them, according to Mr Kabwe, is a Cabinet minister who played a key role in the transaction.
“With a few days remaining before PAC tables a special audit report on the Tegeta esrow, there have been underground campaigns within Parliament and on social media against me and other MPs known to be against the theft of billions from the Bank of Tanzania escrow account,” Mr Kabwe said in the statement.
In what he said was a propaganda attack entitled ‘Zitto and Filikunjombe are being used by Kenya and UK to derail investments in the country’, the Kigoma North MP is said to have collaborated with his friend from Kenya and registered a company in 2011 in order to do business with oil and gas companies operating in the country. In that partnership, the “friend” receives directions from the Kenyan government on how to sabotage investments in the country. But Mr Kabwe dismissed the allegations as “lies.”
It has also been claimed that the outspoken MP has been for a long time been on the payroll of the British government, which is also alleged to be bankrolling Kigoma South MP David Kafulila.
Mr Kabwe said he had never been bought and would never be bought, adding that he was a patriot with unquestionable integrity. “Right or wrong, my country first,” he said in the statement. It has further been claimed that Mr Kabwe and Mr Kafulila were being vocal on the IPTL scandal not because they care about the country but because of personal gain as they have been promised billions of shillings.
This “aggression” was being driven by two things, Mr Kabwe said.
One is the recent decision by PAC to order the arrest of two top officials of the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) for failure to furnish it with 26 production sharing agreements (PSAs). The officials, who were later released after questioning, were TPDC board chairman Michael Mwanda and the acting director general James Andilile. Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone Commander Suleiman Kova said the police released them pending some clarification from Parliament.
And the second reason, according to Mr Kabwe, is PAC’s decision to order the probe of the entire process—from opening to closure—of the Tegeta escrow account in a deal that also binds Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) to pay Pan African Power (PAP) owned 50 per cent by Harbinder Singh Seth, more than Sh12 billion per month in capacity and energy charges regardless of whether the same is produced or not.
But the Kigoma North MP vowed he and the other members of PAC would continue to pursue the investigation to its conclusion.
The PAC statement has come at a time when the public is waiting for the Prime Minister to table the CAG report on the investigation as promised in Parliament last week.
The move to table the report, and also that of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau on the same matter followed pressure by MPs for the National Assembly to list it in the business of the current parliamentary meeting.
The Citizen
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