Dodoma — THE Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has established a special department to assess and identify persons, Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and public entities, which squander public funds before the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) conducts exceptional audits.
The revelation was made in the august House yesterday by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa when fielding questions from lawmakers during the morning impromptu questions to the Prime Minister.
During his question, Arumeru West legislator, Noah Saputu, demanded the government's strategic plans in sealing loopholes for revenue loss.
"I have been seeing you making working tours of different areas countrywide to inspect various development projects and you have been taking several actions on leaders who have been occasioning loss to the government... why cant we have a special strategic plan to avert such theft before it occurs," queried the MP, insisting that even the CAG reports have always been uncovering rot in various public institutions and LGAs.
In response, Mr Majaliwa said that already his office has established a special department to deal with persons misusing public funds.
"In the government we have our own systems to deal with unscrupulous officials stealing from the government and one of the institutions is the CAG office, which conducts auditing in all public institutions as well as private entities in which the government has vested interest.
"I want to pay tribute to the office of the CAG because it has always been doing a good job in issuance of audit reports and I have equally been making frequent tours and in any case, I reveal that there is rot somewhere and I have been taking appropriate measures accordingly," he added.
According to him, in order to ease operations in the office of the CAG, his office decided to establish a special body that will be making assessments in various offices to avert similar incidents before the rot is uncovered by the office of the CAG.
In another development, the PM yesterday asked young persons in the country to establish groups that will help them to acquire loans from the government in order to make their ends meet.
He was responding to questions from two young Special Seats MPs, Nusrath Hanje (CHADEMA) and Ng'wasi Kamani (CCM) who wanted the PM's statement on what the government was doing to look for alternative sources of income to empower youths because the money allocated in the Youth Development Fund was not enough.
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"For almost seven consecutive years the youth Development Fund was not allocated with money to help the young persons in the country, and it was in 2022 when the fund was given only 1bn/- which is not enough to provide loans to all persons from 185 district councils countrywide, therefore I want to know the government's plans in looking for alternative sources of funding," asked Ms Kamani.
In response, the Prime Minister said that the government was fully committed to empowering youths in the country, saying that his office had gone further to provide a six-month training to help them acquire skills that will help them employ themselves.
He added that his office was working with the ministry of State in the President's Office, Regional Administration and Local Government, the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Sports and other development partners in ensuring that the young persons have access to loans that make their dreams come true.
