6th May, 2019
A senior Tanzanian government official told the parliament on Monday that 4,160 public servants out of 9,900 who the government sacked in 2017 over fake academic credentials have been reinstated.
Mary Mwanjelwa, the Deputy Minister of State in the President’s Office responsible for Public Service and Good Governance said the 4,160 public servants were recalled after it was established that they were wrongly sacked.
Mwanjelwa told the House in the capital Dodoma that the decision to recall the public servants and reinstate them on the public payroll system came after the government received complaints from them and other sources over unfair treatment when verifying the academic credentials.
“We made a close follow-up over the matter, and we found that 4,160 servants were removed from the payroll system by error,” said the official.
“Some 3,057 civil servants out of that number were employed at the village and ward levels,” Mwanjelwa said in her response to a question by Musoma Urban Member of Parliament, Vedastus Manyinyi.
In April 2017, Tanzanian President John Magufuli ordered the immediate dismissal of more than 9,900 civil servants after a nationwide verification of academic credentials uncovered workers with forged school and college certificates.
The crackdown on fake degree holders came after another purge launched in March 2016 discovered more than 19,700 “ghost workers” on the country’s public sector payroll.
Tanzania spends more than 260 million dollars per month to pay civil servants’ salaries.
The government believes the public wage bill was bloated, with more than 550,000 civil servants at national and local levels.
Similarly, Tanzanian authorities on Monday said they were working hard to control a further spread of dengue fever which has killed two people as confirmed cases rose from 307 in April to 1,122 by last week.
“It’s unfortunate that two people have been killed by the disease.
Authorities are working hard to make sure that there are no more deaths and the number of cases does not rise,” Ummy Mwalimu, the Minister for Health, said.
Mwalimu said most of the cases were confirmed in Dar es Salaam’s municipalities of Ilala, Temeke, Kinondoni and Ubungo followed by Tanga region and one case has been reported in Singida region in central Tanzania.
She said Dar es Salaam authorities had formed a special committee dealing with raising awareness of the disease, setting up laboratories and treatment to affected people.
“The challenge we are facing is scarcity of facilities for testing the disease,” said Mwalimu, appealing to members of the public to reinforce cleanliness in their areas, including fumigating water pools that were breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
On April 11, the Deputy Minister for Health, Faustine Ndugulile, confirmed the outbreak of dengue fever with a total of 307 cases in Dar es Salaam and Tanga regions.
Symptoms of dengue fever typically begin three to 14 days after infection, which may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash.