The African Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Taxation (APNIFFT), in collaboration with the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) and Policy Forum, is gearing up to launch the APNIFFT Tanzania national caucus on September 7, 2023.

The measures taken by the Government of Tanzania after the release of the report of the Controller and Auditor General for the year 2021/2022, which showed that there has been a large amount of misuse of public funds have been stated to be ineffective because the concept of accountability has not been fully implemented.

The Open Budget Survey (OBS) is the world’s only independent, comparative and fact-based research instrument that uses internationally accepted criteria to assess public access to central government budget information; formal opportunities for the public to participate in the national budget process; and the role of budget oversight institutions, such as legislatures and national audit offices, in the budget process.

Tanzania’s mining sector has recently experienced tremendous changes in its legal and policy frameworks. Generally, the said reforms were aimed at ensuring that country’s natural resources benefit all Tanzanians, particularly through government revenue collection and corresponding distribution. Citizen participation is key in collecting and distributing revenues from mining operations.

Following the recent tabling and discussion of the Controller and Auditor General's (CAG) report on the Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) Tegeta Escrow Account (TEA) in parliament and the subsequent public outcry regarding revelations of unprecedented fraud, we, the undersigned Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)  wish to communicate our joint position on the controversy.

One of the basic features of extractive industry transparency initiative (EITI) is that it provides citizens with information which they can use to demand for accountability which ultimately results to resource good governance; Greater appreciation of the contributions of Extractive Iindustry (EIs) to the country forinstance EIs contributed 10.6% of Government revenue in 2011/12. This is inclusive of VAT (1.5%) and contributions to pension funds (0.6%). This was pointed out during the Policy Forum Breakfast debate by Mr.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have called upon the government to create greater transparency in state-investor contracts as well as revenues that companies pay the government of Tanzania.

The call was made by CSOs during a training session to familiarise CSOs with the new EITI Standards and the principles of good extractives revenue management, many expressed that this would partly help deal with the problem of lack of accountable management of the sector.

African civil society organisations and a coalition of leading international development organisations have called for global policymakers to adopt measures to counter the hundreds of billions of dollars siphoned out of the continent through money laundering and industrial scale corporate tax avoidance.

The Financial Transparency Coalition’s (FTC) two-day high-level conference with Policy Forum held in Dar es Salaam last week was attended by 150 senior politicians, prominent international lawyers, academics, anti-corruption specialists and campaigners.

They heard:

September 5th, 2013 –The Global Movement for Budget Transparency, Accountability and Participation (BTAP) urges the world´s 20 economic powers to set a good example and to commit to advancing budget transparency, accountability and participation in their countries. The G20 countries should not only focus on discussing how to advance transparency and fight tax-avoidance, they should also launch strong and decisive strategies to promote budget transparency and accountability in their own countries, setting a good example to the rest of the world.

US President Barack Obama and the media might be traveling to my country this week to talk about such ‘sexy’ matters as the US’ economic race with China or peace and security issues. However if America is truly serious about pushing democratic governance around the world, it’s the less ‘sexy’ matters that are even more crucial.