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Tanzania: Radar - I Have Clean Hands, Says Mgonja
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
13 May 2008
Posted to the web 13 May 2008
Mkinga Mkinga
Treasury permanent secretary Gray Mgonja, who authorised payments for the controversial Sh70 billion radar transaction, has finally broken his silence, claiming his innocence.
In an interview with The Citizen, Mr Mgonja said he never received bribes from the broker of the infamous deal, Mr Sailesh Vithlan.
"My involvement was only as government paymaster and one of the committee members that spearheaded the tendering process.
I never received any kickbacks. I did not receive any shilling or dollar from any body. My role was just to pay the money and nothing more," said Mr Mgonja.
His remarks come amid rumours that apart from former minister Andrew Chenge, who resigned recently after being linked with the dubious deal, four more top officials including former and current cabinet ministers were being investigated in connection with the deal.
Mr Chenge denies having played any major role in the deal but claimed he was involved in the 'minor aspects', which were endorsed by other ministries and approved by the Cabinet.
There are also reports that the broker of the deal Mr Vithlani, who is said to have received kickbacks amounting to $12 million from the UK's BAE Systems, an arms company, has entered into special agreements with the UK's Serious Fraud Office in which he promised to name all recipients of the dubious payments.
Mr Mgonja told The Citizen a special team of experts from about five different ministries were selected to go through the process of identifying a reliable supplier of the military radar system.
He said the team was also tasked to provide technical details of the required radar and finally approve the procurement process.
However, he did not name members of the team that supervised the controversial deal.
Mid last month, a UK newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the UK's Serious Fraud Office had found about $1 million in an offshore bank account owned by Mr Chenge. But the ex-minister claimed his bank records would show investigators that 'there is no connection to the BAE radar deal.'
So far there is no credible evidence linking the found money to the controversial $12 million kickback payments by BAE System to the radar deal broker. Investigations are still underway, and Mr Chenge has been named by the UK probe team as a 'valuable witness.'
Early last year, Mr Vithlani admitted that the UK's BAE Systems secretly paid a $12 million commission into his Swiss bank account in a deal which led to Tanzania buying a controversial £28 million military radar system, which was double the real price.
The back-door payment represented 30 per cent of the contract value. Tanzania had to borrow to finance the deal, which critics said was unnecessary and overpriced.
According to UK's The Guardian Newspaper, the Tanzania deal, although smaller in cash terms than the Saudi deals, is equally controversial: Tanzania is one of the world's poorest countries, and the UK government is paying more than £100 million this year to help the heavily-indebted country's budget.
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Reports also say it was former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who forced the radar deal through the British cabinet, despite protests from the then international development secretary, Clare Short. She said the sale, for which Tanzania had to borrow yet more from a commercial bank, was corrupt and 'stank'.
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