ZANZIBAR Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Authority (ZAECA) has taken to court fifteen public servants for abuse of public office.
The new development comes hardly three weeks after President Hussein Mwinyi directed ZAECA to make self assessment on its performance due to an increase in theft incidents of government properties and economic sabotage.
The new ZAECA Director General, Mr Ali Abdallah Ali said that the arraigned public servants were from different government offices.
"The suspects are from the Office of Chief Government Statistician (OCGS)- Zanzibar, Zanzibar Revenue Board (ZRB), and the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport," the DG told journalists in his office on Tuesday.
He said the suspects are charged with different offences under sections: 42(1) (a) 60(1) (2) (a) 61 of ZAECA Law No. 1/2012, at the High Court of Zanzibar, and other courts with jurisdictions to hear such offences.
The ZAECA boss named the arraigned suspects as Issa Ramadhan Senga and Fadhil Ali Hassan from OCGS-Zanzibar who are accused of fraud which led to a loss of more than 51m/-.
Others are Mohammed Mussa Ussi, Issa Barakat Abdallah, Saidi Shaban Mtinga and Suleiman Hamad Rashid from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communication, and Transport, who are charged with engaging in dubious deals that led to the loss of more than 1bn/-.
The ZAECA DG further said that another case is linked to dubious deals of using fake money worth 800 million US dollars and 100 Euros, the suspects are Khatib Ameir Haji, Feruz Omar Khamis, Abubakar Hamis Bakari and Ali Omar Ahmed.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"ZRB's Kassim Idrisa Mussa, Abdulatif AbdallahWaziri, Asia Abdulsalam Hussein, Aisha Yussuf Said and Fatma Kombo Mohammed have also been taken to court for being involved in tampering with the payment system that led to loss of more than 200m/- and 3, 817 US dollars.
He said that all the accused have denied the charges. Mr Ali called upon members of the public to cooperate with the authority in the anti-graft and economic crime by providing reliable information and evidence on incidents related to corruption.
Three weeks ago, after President Mwinyi received the Zanzibar 2020/2021 Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report, where he said that it is disappointing to see that despite confession by some of the suspects and others being ready to return stolen funds to the government, no legal action has been taken against them.
Dr Mwinyi said that the situation paints a picture that the authority has failed to perform its functions by instituting legal measures to contain the incidents.
The president's directives led to the resignation of ZAECA Director General, ACP Ahmed Khamis Makarani and appointment of Mr Ali Abdallah Ali as new boss.
Speaking during the swearing in of Mr Ali, President Mwinyi vowed to sustain his tough measures against embezzlement of public resources and heighten the anti-graft fight.
He handed over a copy of the Zanzibar 2020/2021 Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report to the new ZAECA DG, directing him to dig deep into the raised issues in the report and take legal actions against all people implicated in the report. He said that the government will provide full support to ZAECA.
