A prosecution witness in a case where former Cabinet ministers are on trial for abuse of office said yesterday that the Attorney General was not involved in the controversial hiring of a gold auditing firm.

Ms Betha Soka's testimony contradicted former Energy and Minerals minister Daniel Yona's records, suggesting

that the AG's Chambers were involved in the negotiations leading up to the hiring of Alex Stewart Assayers (ASA).

Mr Yona, former finance minister Basil Mramba and former Treasury permanent secretary Gray Mgonja are accused of occasioning the Government a Sh11.7 billion loss by hiring ASA.

The witness, defended the AG, saying he had no hand in the deal as alleged in the documents exchanged between the ministry of energy and minerals and the State House in the course of the hiring process in 2003.

The minutes between Mr Yona and former President Benjamin Mkapa were presented in court recently as exhibits against the former minister.

Ms Soka who was a senior finance management officer at the ministry of finance and who represented the ministry in the negotiations, said at no time did representatives from the AG's office take part in the negotiations leading up to the hiring of ASA in 2003. "I was representing the ministry of finance in the negotiation meetings.

Other members of the negotiating team were from the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) and the ministry of minerals and energy; there were no representative from the Attorney General Office," the witness told the court when she was being cross examined by the prosecutors.

According to the minutes, which were written between March 3 and May 11, 2003, and which were read by the witness before a panel of magistrates led by resident magistrate John Utamwa, Mr Yona informed the former President that the negotiations of the contract involved representatives from the AG chambers.

In the minutes dated March 3, 2003, Mr Yona told President Mkapa, among other things, that care would be taken by the BoT in choosing an auditing firm to enable the Government accrue the much needed benefit from gold sector.

In the minutes of May 11 2003, Mr Yona told Mr Mkapa that, "After writing to you on March 3, the negotiations involving the ministries of finance and energy and minerals, the BoT as well as the Attorney General's Office are proceeding well."

However, in her testimony, the witness told the court that the AG was not involved in the process of hiring the auditing firm.

She said that she got instructions from her boss Ms Agnes Bukuku who was the director of legal services to represent the ministry in the negotiations between ASA and the Government.

In the course of the negotiations, ASA demanded that it be exempted from paying tax during the whole period of its activities.

The witness, who dealt with tax issues in the negotiations, informed her boss (Ms Bukuku), and they agreed to leave the matter of tax exemptions to Mr Mramba, who had the