Saturday, May 23, 2015

Ireland Votes 'Yes' To Same-Sex Marriage


IRELAND-GAY-MARRIAGE-VOTE
Ireland has voted in favour of same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to adopt the social reform through a popular poll.
A total of 1,201,607 voters backed the reform in the countrywide vote on Friday, which worked out to 62.07% in favour.
Over 1.9 million of the Irish Republic's 3.2 million-strong electorate turned out to cast their votes - a turnout of more than 60%.
Map showing constituency votes in Ireland's gay marriage vote
Only one out of the 42 constituencies voted "no", with a majority of voters in all the others backing the change to the country's constitution.
The strongest support was in Dublin where the number voting "yes" went over 70% in most districts.
Voters were asked whether they wanted to amend Article 41 of the 1937 Constitution by adding a new clause to a section titled The Family.
It asked them to support or reject a change to the 78-year-old document to make it read: "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex."
Some observers have said the change is remarkable considering it is only 22 years since Ireland decriminalised homosexuality.
The vote has not yet made same-sex marriage legal - new laws will now be put to Irish parliament before the summer.
It is expected that the first ceremonies will take place before the end of the year.
Leo Varadkar, Health Minister and Ireland's first openly gay cabinet member, described what it meant for his country's population.
"Something has been awakened in the Irish people ... it was not just a referendum it was more like a social revolution," he said.
Thousands of people packed into the upper courtyard at Dublin Castle to await the result and cheered as it was announced.
Same sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales by the UK Parliament in July 2013 and in Scotland by the Scottish Parliament in February 2014.
The move puts renewed pressure on the devolved Northern Ireland government to follow suit after the executive said it has no intention of introducing legislation.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny paid tribute to the 60,000 young people who registered to vote in recent weeks and thousands of emigrants who came home from as far afield as Canada, the US and Australia to cast their ballots.
"It's a piece of history," he said.
One of Ireland's most senior Catholic clerics, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, said the church had to be aware that Ireland had changed.
He told RTE: "It's a social revolution that's been going on ... I think really the Church needs to do a reality check."
The Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin, had earlier said the church hierarchy may have to reconsider its position on whether priests would continue to solemnise the civil aspect of a marriage if the vote was passed.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

This is how your cash was ‘eaten’ in 2013/14

Controller and Auditor General Mussa Assad briefs the media in Dodoma yesterday on the 2013/14 audit report compiled by his office.
Dar es Salaam. A handful of influential people are stealing taxpayers’ money and depriving millions of Tanzanians of quality social services.
Controller and Auditor General Mussa Assad revealed the scam yesterday as he presented his Audit Report for the 2013/14 financial year in Parliament.  Billions of poor taxpayers’ money went to ghost workers and to retired employees who had been working in diplomatic missions and who continue to live in the countries they were posted to. Some of it was stolen through tenders that were awarded without following the right procedures and through the misuse of tax incentives by some multinational firms.
The review was based on an analysis of a sample of 176 institutions that report directly to the Central Government. Some  163 of those institutions are under the Local Government Authorities. There were also 775 development projects. And Tanzania lost Sh22.33 billion due to misuse of tax exemptions, according to Prof Assad, who succeeded Mr Ludovick Utouh in December last year.
This was the case when Geita Gold Mine and Resolute Tanzania decided to import oil using exempted documents but ended up giving the petroleum products to their contractors, who did not qualify for the incentive.
In the same vein, the country lost Sh392 million when the Arusha-based Kiliwarrior Expeditions Limited received an exemption to import vehicles that ended up not being used for the purpose they were intended. “Another Sh53.4 million was lost due to misuse of tax exemptions by Karatu-based Kilemakyaro Mountain Lodges,” said Prof Assad. “I advise the government to fill these loopholes by making routine follow-ups on how tax exemptions are being utilised.”
Prof Assad is a Certified Professional Accountant who, prior to his appointment as CAG, taught at the University of Dar es Salaam’s Business School.  He gave nine of the 176 audited Central Government institutions and some 13 of the 163 LGAs a Qualified (dirty) Opinion, signalling that he had reservations about the way they conducted their financial transactions. In auditing, a qualified opinion is offered when an independent auditor gets the impression that the audited financial statements do not reflect a fair view of the transactions. An Unqualified Opinion is essentially a Clean Bill of Health and means that the audited institution has presented its financial statements fairly.
Accompanied by the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, Ms Amina Mwidawa (CUF-Special Seats), Local Authorities’ Accounts Committee Chairman Rajab Mbarouk and Chairperson for the Parliamentary Budget Committee Kidawa Saleh (Special Seats, CCM), Prof Assad said the audited LGAs and Central Government institutions made transactions totalling Sh4.4 billion and Sh4.6 billion respectively with companies that did not issue receipts generated through Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs).  This denied the government an opportunity to collect the right amount of tax. Prof Assad said: “My audit has also established that former government employees, including those who have died, those who resigned and those who have retired, are still receiving salaries through their accounts. Health insurance, Pay As You Earn and social security contributions are still being deducted from these salaries.” 
Tanzania lost some Sh1.01 billion in salaries to ghost workers while another Sh845 million was paid to pension funds, health insurance schemes, financial institutions and to Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) from these people’s salaries.
A total of Sh543.797 million was paid to Tanzania’s embassies and high commissions in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maputo in Mozambique, Ottawa in Canada and in Washington DC in the United States. “I advise that instead of paying Foreign Service Allowance to retirees, the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation should consider the same amount to facilitate transportation of personal effects,” he said.
A total of Sh1.889 trillion was not disbursed for development activities to Central Government institutions as expected in the 2013/2014 budget while another Sh312.04 billion, meant for development expenditure at LGA level, was not disbursed that year.
Some more billions of taxpayers’ money were lost through tenders without following the proper bidding process. Some LGAs and Central Government Authorities paid more than the amounts that were prescribed on the contracts while some procurements were conducted outside the agreed plan for the financial year.
As for some audited public institutions, the National Housing Corporation issued Sh1.75 billion in tenders using a non-competitive bidding procedure and this led to only one company being picked to do the job. The Ngorongoro Conservation Authority issued a Sh2.3 billion tender on restrictive procedur–meaning that only a selected few bidders were allowed–and this without proper reasons.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Burundi unrest leaves 50,000 refugees facing dire conditions in Tanzania

Burundian refugees gather on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Kagunga village in Kigoma region in western Tanzania, as they wait for MV Liemba to transport them to Kigoma township, May 17, 2015. Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza on Sunday made his first public appearance in the capital Bujumbura since an attempted coup last week failed to oust him from power, saying he was monitoring a threat posed by Islamist militants from Somalia.
They are coming in their thousands, a steady stream of men, women and children bearing what few possessions they can carry as they flee their native Burundi and the pro-government militias who they fear are intent on death and destruction.
At Kagunga, a tiny fishing village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika just 2km (1.5 miles) inside Tanzania, an estimated 50,000 refugees are sleeping rough, waiting for a 100-year-old ferry, the MV Liemba, to carry them south to safety.
Conditions in the makeshift camp are dire, with families forced to sleep on the dirt; plastic sheets and tarpaulins provide their only protection from the elements. To eat, they cook meagre rations on open fires.
According to the UN refugee agency, the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), more than 110,000 people so far have fled a political crisis that many fear could descend into another bout of ethnic bloodletting in the heart of Africa’s Great Lakes region.
Most of them have gone south to Tanzania, but 27,000 have sought safety to the north in Rwanda, which is still recovering from the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. A further 9,000 people have headed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Kagunga, seven people have died since the evacuees started arriving, the UNHCR said. After a failed coup in Burundi last week, few expect the flow of people to slow. Of the dead, two people are suspected to have been victims of cholera, while 300 others are suffering from acute diarrhoea, said the UNHCR, suggesting that the death toll could climb.
The ferry, which was first used by the German imperial navy to patrol Lake Tanganyika in 1915, can carry 600 people but cannot dock at Kagunga, meaning that passengers have to be transported from there by fishing boat, a process that takes 10 hours.
The only other way out of the village is a four-hour trek to another village up through the dense jungle on cliffs abutting the lake, part of Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
“The situation is very difficult. We’ve stepped up efforts to move people away by trying to rehabilitate a mountain track so that at least they can walk out, but it’s a strenuous hike,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Karin de Gruijl
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 Violence in Burundi forces thousands to flee to Tanzania.
More than 2,000 people are arriving at Kagunga each day, more than the ferry can handle. They are united in fear of the youth militias known as Imbonerakure, who are loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza, the man whose bid for a third term has triggered the crisis.
Just 10 years after the end of a civil war between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis in which 300,000 people died, any sign that the Imbonerakure are flexing their muscles is enough to sow panic.
“The reason there are so many people here is because we didn’t feel secure back at home because Imbonerakure were going around threatening people and saying they were going to finish them [off],” a refugee who did not want to be named told Reuters.
“This went on for a while … And then things got worse because we heard about what was happening in the capital.”
In Rwanda’s refugee centres, some Tutsis said they had fled an expected backlash from Nkurunziza’s security forces after last week’s attempted coup by generalsopposed to his plans to prolong his presidential term.
“I heard that the coup had failed so I was afraid that the Imbonerakure could retaliate,” said Hakizimana Leonidas, a 46-year-old Tutsi who arrived in the Gashora refugee camp at the weekend. “They tried a coup and it failed. I think its going to be worse for us who don’t want to see Nkurunziza run again.”
“I have a fiancĂ©e in Burundi but because of the terror by Imbonerakure I had to run away,” said 27-year-old Jean Berchimas Dukuzemungu, the son of a Tutsi father and Hutu mother. “When you are young and you’re not in their party, you are in danger.”

ON THE DOUBLE : MP won’t let an injured foot slow him down

ON THE DOUBLE : MP won’t let an injured foot slow him down
Igalula MP Athuman Mfutakamba rushes towards Parliament’s debating chamber in Dodoma yesterday. Mr Mfutakamba, who had a flip-flop on one foot due to an injury, was among MPs lined up to ask questions during the morning session.

PCCB says won’t close escrow case files

Dodoma. Prevention and Combating Corruption Bureau (PCCB) says it will not close the files of cases facing individuals who were adversely mentioned in the Tegeta escrow account scandal.
The anti-corruption agency said yesterday that it will send to court those officials once it completes investigations. The government recently cleared former Energy and Minerals permanent secretary Eliachim Maswi and former minister Sospeter Muhongo of any ethical wrongdoings over the escrow scandal.
But, director general of the PCCB, Dr Edward Hosea, said the government did its part on issues of government leaders ethics and the PCCB has its own way of dealing with corruption as according to the law.
“The file is still open, it has not been closed and will not be closed…For us we don’t clear people, it’s only the court that will clear them,” Director General of the PCCB, Dr Edward Hosea, said.
Dr Hosea noted this while taking the MPs through Anti-corruption law and Election Expenses Act of 2010, the workshop meant to build awareness among the lawmakers as Tanzania inches towards the General Election.
So far, a total of 23 individuals have been charged on cases related to the Election Expenses Act 2010 since it came into effect. Noting that the law is still alive and kicking , only that the MPs needed to improve on it when they find any weaknesses.
The workshop was organized by the African Parliamentarians’ Network Against Corruption (APNAC).
When officially opening the seminar, minister of State in the President Office (Good Governance), Capt George Nkuchika, challenged the PCCB not to wait until official opening of campaigns to monitor candidates, noting that some of the MPs have already started underground campaigns and were corrupting voters.
Chairperson of the APNAC, Dr Mary Mwanjelwa (Special Seats-CCM), called on the PCCB to encourage stakeholders in order to avoid getting leaders through corruption since a good leaders are normally obtained without bribe.
Meanwhile, Dr Hosea warned the candidates who would vie for different posts during the next elections that the PCCB has now acquired special equipment for closely monitoring bribes dished out via mobile money system.

Cholera outbreak kills at least 17 Burundi refugees until now

Kigoma. Seventeen Burundian refugees being accommodated in Kigoma Region have died from an outbreak of cholera and several others appear to be trapped in a health crisis arising from poor sanitation in the temporary camps.
Eight deaths occurred in Kagunga Village which is serving as the holding ground for the arriving refugees while nine others died at Kigoma Regional Hospital, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and health officials in Kigoma confirmed yesterday.
Those who died had suffered bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting, afflictions that have been blamed on lack of safe drinking water and proper sanitation.
An estimated 70,000 refugees have fled to Tanzania from the fighting in Burundi ignited by an attempted coup against President Pierre Nkurunziza whose decision to run for a third term has thrown the country into a political crisis. Over 20,000 of the refugees have been moved to Nyarugusu refugee camp in Kigoma as UN Aid agencies made frantic efforts to shift thousands stranded at Kagunga.
Authorities in Kigoma say samples from some of those admitted have been taken for testing for cholera and a statement released by UNHCR indicated tests had proved positive.
Public health authorities fear the disease could spread and lead to an unprecedented crisis in the area, with figures indicating that more than 2,200 refugees have so far been diagnosed with acute watery diarrhoea and over 10,000 others are suffering from both diarrhoea plus vomiting.
Another 676 others have been diagnosed with malaria in the Kagunga refugee camp.
According to a sanitation officer who declined to be named, the health crisis in Kagunga Village is emanating from improper disposal of human waste and the poor capacity of the authorities to handle the emergency.
Kigoma’s acting district medical officer, Dr James Jumanne, urged residents of Kagunga to remain vigilant following the disease outbreak, and warned that it was unsafe for them to continue drinking water from the nearby Lake Tanganyika.
He told The Citizen that the crisis was proving difficult to handle for the municipal health authorities due to shortage of health staff. He noted that only seven sanitation officers could be deployed in the areas occupied by the refugees to try and contain the health situation there.
A refugee co-ordinator in Kigoma, Mr Tony Laizer, declined to speak on the refugee crisis in the meantime but the The Citizen has reliably learnt that the Nyarugusu camp, where most refugees where being taken, is now full to capacity.
Plans were under way to relocate some to another camp in Kasulu District, to be christened Nyarugusu B. The UNHCR said it would take urgent measures in collaboration with authorities in Tanzania to contain the problem.
“UNHCR’s priority is to work with the ministry of Health and international partners to prepare for the worst and quickly establish a cholera treatment centre in Kagunga,” said Joyce the Mends-Cole, UNHCR Representative in Tanzania.
“There is only a small dispensary in that village, but it lacks the necessary diagnostics and treatment modalities – including medication,” he added. The UN refugee agency is also flying in urgently needed medication, to supplement what can be found locally.
Reports say roadblocks and the closure of borders have been making it hard for people to flee.
“The real problem that we have at the moment is trying to take these people away from Kagunga before we have a major health crisis,” said Mends-Cole.
Most of the refugees at Kagunga are women and children who have been sleeping out in the rain, said the International Rescue Committee’s Tanzania country director, Elijah Okeyo.
They are squeezed in a confined space with a shortage of latrines and drinking water in a village that is normally home to 12,000 people, he said.
“The situation is desperate,” he said. “There are a lot of sick people.”

EAC softens stance as Burundi situation stabilizes...


Chairman of the East African Council of Ministers Harrison Mwakyembe (left) confers with council member Shem Bageine of Uganda (second left),  Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for East Africa Cooperation Abdallah Sadalla (second right) and East African Community Secretary-General Richard Sezibera during a meeting on the Burundi crisis yesterday
The Burundi elections may not be postponed as directed by the emergency East African Community Heads of State held in Dar es Salaam last week.
 Instead, the EAC will dispatch an observer mission to the parliamentary and presidential elections slated for May 26 and June 26, respectively, as initially planned, according to a senior Tanzanian government official.
 The change of heart apparently follows what has been perceived as a stabilizing of situation in Burundi, where renegade soldiers attempted to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza last Wednesday  after weeks of violent clashes between police and protesters.
 “There is no way the EAC can avoid supporting the government of Pierre Nkurunziza for now. The situation has somehow stabilized unlike before the attempted coup,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
 The official, who spoke on the sidelines of an emergency meeting of member states’ East African cooperation ministers at the EAC headquarters, said the partner states were relieved that peace was returning to Burundi in the wake of violence that left about 20 people dead.  However, he did not say whether the EAC had accepted President Nkurunziza’s controversial bid for a third term, which sparked the crisis.
It was resolved during last week’s summit that Burundi was not ready for free and fair elections given the fluid situation in Burundi following weeks of  violent demonstrations.
The leaders from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda called upon the authorities in Bujumbura to postpone the elections for a period not beyond the mandate of the current government of President Nkurunziza.
 Summit chairman President Jakaya Kikwete hosted the meeting at State House, Dar es Salaam, and other leaders in attendance were presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya.
President Nkurunziza, was in Dar es Salaam, but did not attend the meeting following reports of an attempted coup against him.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Bernard Membe, told reporters in Dar es Salaam at the weekend that the security situation in Burundi was too fragile for elections to be held.
 He indicated that the EAC was about to propose that the eagerly-awaited elections be postponed to July this year “when the dust would have settled”, but not after August when Mr Nkurunziza’s term will come to an end.
Yesterday’s emergency meeting in Arusha, chaired by East Africa Cooperation minister Harrison Mwakyembe, discussed the Burundi crisis within the context of last Friday’s meeting of attorneys general from the five partner states Journalists were barred from attending the meeting which ended around mid-day and instead were promised to be briefed on the outcome. It was not until 5 pm when the EAC Secretary General, Dr Richard Sezibera emerged for a briefing.
 He said the EAC and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) would send a committee of elders  to Bujumbura to consult with all players on the coming polls.
 He added that the Council of Ministers chairperson (Dr Mwakyembe) and Secretary General (himself) would urgently visit Burundi “to assess the situation on the ground”.
 Dr Sezibera said another meeting of the EAC Heads of State would take place in Dar es Salaam in the near future to discuss the Burundi crisis after the one that was to be held last week was called off after reports filtered in that President Nkurunziza had been ousted.
Meanwhile, protests continued in Burundi yesterday despite President Nkurunziza’s order for an immediate stop to the demonstrations against his third term bid.
The President, who survived a coup attempt last week, has claimed that the demonstrators were collaborators of the coup plotters.
“It is clear that all the protesters closely collaborated with the putschists and the rebels who attacked the country last year in Cibitoke Province,” said the President.
Former Defence minister and one of the coup leaders Cyrille Ndayirukiye claimed Defence minister Potien Gaciyubwenge and army chief Prime Niyongabo were all behind the failed coup.
Early yesterday, soldiers were deployed around the capital Bujumbura to stop the protests and clear the barricades erected on the main streets.
“’We won’t stop protesting until President Nkurunziza steps down, but what we are witnessing on the ground is scary,” said an activist who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
The activist said the country was at a great risk because of the apparent division in the military.