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Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete. An anti-corruption agency report indicates that the vice continues to thrive under his watch. Photo/LEONARD MAGOMBA
By SYLVESTER ERNEST in Dar es Salaam
Posted Monday, May 16 2011 at 18:26
Tanzania's Police Force has been ranked as the most corrupt institution in the country.
The Police Force, according to a report by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), is followed by the Judiciary and the education sectors as the other most corrupt institutions.
On Monday, the PCCB bowed to pressure from donors and agreed to release the much-awaited National Governance and Corruption Survey report.
The report was published on the PCCB website only days after President Jakaya Kikwete directed that it be made public owing to pressure from donors.
The President's order was relayed Monday in Dodoma by Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda during a joint General Budget Support (GBS) meeting attended by representatives from donor countries.
The report showed that despite efforts by President Kikwete's administration, corruption had continued to be an impediment to the country's development.
The new survey, unsurprisingly, showed also that water and electricity supply agencies and lands office were among the institutions that provided the poorest services.
The survey also established public officials were most tied to the perpetration of corruption.
Cited by the report as least corrupt were the country's pension funds, insurance companies and tender boards.
Poor remuneration
"[Corruption] is a major problem affecting all sectors of the national economy from service delivery to natural resource exploitation, industrial production, environmental protection, business and commerce," reads part of the report, which was conducted in 2009.
The report also noted that service delivery was crippled by corruption and institutional inefficiency. Respondents rated the quality of services provided by key public institutions, notably the Police Force and Judiciary, as poor.
People were also particularly concerned about the low levels of integrity in these institutions.
When asked what was the cause of corruption, most of the respondents listed greed and poverty and insisted that the war against the two was paramount in the fight against the vice.
They also cited poor remuneration of public servants, who resorted to petty corruption, to make ends meet in an environment of rising cost of living.
"The business environment is undermined by corruption and excessive bureaucracy. Responses from enterprises indicate that corruption is a significant impediment to the general growth and operation of businesses in Tanzania," says the report.
The report recommends that improvement in public administration was needed in order to make public institutions more efficient, transparent and accountable to users of public services.
Public officials' responses indicated that although a sound service management framework was in place, the enforcement of rules and regulations in most public institutions, particularly those governing personnel and financial management, was weak