EPA, Jairo’s fundraiser gave Utouh sleepless nights

Bank of Tanzania 

By Samuel Kamndaya, The Citizen Reporter

Posted  Thursday, September 18  2014 at  09:58

IN SUMMARY

Outgoing Controller and Auditor General (CAG) Ludovick Utouh confided in The Citizen on Tuesday that Epa was his most difficult assignment. He felt he had been treated unfairly in the David Jairo saga involving the former Energy and Minerals Permanent Secretary.

Dar es Salaam. The 2008 External Payment Arrears (Epa) scam and the 2011 David Jairo fundraiser may have been hot topics for the media, politicians, development partners and civil society but they gave the man who audited them sleepless nights.

Outgoing Controller and Auditor General (CAG) Ludovick Utouh confided in The Citizen on Tuesday that Epa was his most difficult assignment. He felt he had been treated unfairly in the David Jairo saga involving the former Energy and Minerals Permanent Secretary.

“The Jairo saga resulted in serious disappointment for me, especially when MPs wanted me fired when my report ran contrary to their expectations,” he said.

Mr Utouh, the fifth CAG of independent Tanganyika/Tanzania, landed in the bad books of the legislators when he cleared Mr Jairo of the allegations Parliament levelled against him back in 2011.

The drama started during debate on the budget for the Ministry of Energy and Minerals for 2011/12, when Ms Beatrice Shelukindo (Kilindi-CCM) laid her hands on a copy of letter he wrote to some institutions in his ministry requesting funds to help finance the endorsement of the revenues and expenditure plan.

The letter went to Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, which was asked to contribute Sh50 million.

The Rural Energy Authority was requested to make available some Sh50 million and some Sh40 million was solicited from Tanesco. The Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority was asked for Sh40 million.

The CAG investigated the issue and gave Mr Jairo a clean bill of health but MPs took it that the CAG was covering-up a corruption attempt at the ministry.

Mr Utouh told The Citizen in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday that he still stands by his report. “I challenge anyone who has evidence to come forward and show me the law that Jairo broke in soliciting funds,” he added.

 The loss of some Sh133 billion from Bank of Tanzania’s Epa account was so stressful that it gave him grey hair. “I came into this office with black hair,” Mr Utouh recalls. “It was the stress of investigating Epa that gave me gray hair in a short period.”

He is happy, though, that he helped Tanzania regain the confidence of its development partners—who had threatened to withdraw their support if no action was taken against those involved in the scandal
.