Judegment Day At The High Court London

Judegment Day At The High Court London
Mengi v Hermitage: Libel Claim Successfully Defended

Friday 24 June 2011

Membe. Dont dictate to us on Civil Society!!!!!!!!!!






Bernard Membe
Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

“Despite its poverty, Tanzania is not ready to be treated in such a manner.........'


Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Bernard Membe has thrown his toys out of his cot over the continuing BAE saga.
In a frenzied tantrum Mr Membe has stated the Tanzanian government will bar UK based charitable organisations from operating in the country should BAE Systems decline to pay funds from the controversial saga direct to the government as opposed to ‘charitable institutions’ for the benefit of all Tanzanians.

“Despite its poverty, Tanzania is not ready to be treated in such a manner, where the central government, institutions and civil society organisations are not trusted…’ states Mr. Membe.
Well it may come as a surprise to Mr. Membe but his government institutions are not trusted. Mr. membe has failed to appreciate that there were ‘persons’ in Tanzania that accepted the controversial monies from BAE’s ‘accounting errors’. What exactly has the Tanzanian government done to ensure that those monies go anywhere except remain in offshore bank accounts belonging to Tanzanians? Nothing!!!!!
Mr. Membe states Tanzania was ready to lose the money for the sake of protecting the country’s integrity. He said Tanzania will not tolerate seeing the company that stole its money, deciding who should be given the money. “It is my hope that legislators will put aside their political ideologies and join hands in protecting the country’s integrity”,

Well it is doubted that the majority of Tanzanians agree with this view.

Perhaps Mr. Membe should appreciate the fact that it is adherence to the rule of law that has made these funds available at all. When the Tanzanian government shows the same 'integrity', and exposes those that received the funds in the first place then he may have room to criticise the UK and BAE.

Until then, it is suggested that he put your toys back in your cot and take your cot and keep quiet on the issue.
As to the integrity of the Tanzanian government Mr. Membe is reminded of his governments conduct in the Silverdale Farm case where the Tanzanian government facilitated violence, intimidation and abuse of law against British citizens and sat back and watched as they were driven from Tanzania like dogs.

Many in the UK would perhaps support Mr. Membe's call to close down all UK NGO’s in Tanzania. They would also support the cessation of UK aid to Tanzania should the Tanzanian government find UK civil society so distatsteful!!!

Govt: Radar money should go to Treasury

The government will bar UK based charitable organisations from operating in the country should BAE Systems decline to channel into public coffers the estimated 75bn/- it pledged to refund Tanzania following the controversial radar sale.

Presenting an official government statement in Parliament yesterday, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Bernard Membe said: “Despite its poverty, Tanzania is not ready to be treated in such a manner, where the central government, institutions and civil society organisations are not trusted…allowing this to happen is to create a loophole for another embezzlement.”
Membe told the MPs that Tanzania was ready to lose the money for the sake of protecting the country’s integrity. He said Tanzania will not tolerate seeing the company that stole its money, deciding who should be given the money in UK and its expenditures in the country.
“It is my hope that legislators will put aside their political ideologies and join hands in protecting the country’s integrity”, he said.
The minister said that BAE Systems have ears but don’t want to hear the cry of the majority Tanzanians, and that it has closed its eyes to the government and its people.
He claimed that the British company paid the US government USD 400 million last year, without conditions, but has in Tanzania’s case even formed a special board to monitor the expenditures.
Membe said the government has been making efforts, including meeting with UK Minister for African Affairs, Henry Bellingham to push BAE Systems to return the radar money to government coffers.
He said the other measures taken are formation of a special team comprising of three Members of Parliament and the Deputy Speaker, Job Ndugai, which has been sent to the UK to meet and discuss with UK legislators during the ongoing Westminster Parliament.
The team will also have discussions with other top officials in the UK government to push for the BAE System to deposit the money in the Tanzania government treasury.
Other MPs in the team are the Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Security and Foreign Affairs, Azzan Zungu, the Deputy Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs Angellah Kairuki and Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on Public Accounts, John Cheyo.
According to the minister, the two governments had previously agreed that the money should be spent for the benefit of all Tanzanians through the education sector. He said the government decided to purchase 4.4 million books for primary school pupils, 192,000 textbooks for primary school teachers, construct 1,196 teachers’ houses and 200,000 toilets in different primary schools countrywide.
Last year the Southward Crown Court ordered BAE System to pay a fine of £500,000 for 'accounting errors', plus £225,000 towards the SFO's costs
BAE also pledged to pay £29.3m to Tanzania, which lost out when part of BAE's payment to win a radar contract at Julius Nyerere International Airport found its way into coffers other than those of the state.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

The people of Tanzania don't agree with you Mr. Membe. Below are some of the comments taken from the Citizen today:-
 
 
+2#2Malcom X2011-06-24 01:06
In this issue, I think Membe is totally wrong. Some of the members of the government of Tanzania had received were directly involved in bribery in this Radar saga. The government has neither interrogated nor brought them to books! This kind of behavior makes the government accomplice of wrongdoing hence lack moral authority to get the refund. Second, the experience shows us that refunded money are taken by our government as blank checks for embezzlement. Where is EPA's money? Has it been audited by CGA? How was Stimulus Package used? Did it reach the targeted? Has it been audited? There are local NGOs, which could responsibly administer this heist than the culprit- the government itself! Haki Elimu could do it at the best!

+2#1maisha2011-06-24 00:26
Actually the British and BAE is doing the right thing in not giving the money to the Government of Tanzania! The money belongs to the people of Tanzania. Not to thieves who have stolen from their own people&who continue to walk the streets of Dar without any accountability! ! By the way, this gvt delegation to lobby for the money cost the TZ taxpayer money to fund this trip. Why not a delegation of the TZ public lobbying to the British gvt. not to give thieves their own money?
+2#4Siwatu Lukindo2011-06-24 04:06
Mr. Membe and the government you represent have no moral authority to pretend "humility of the republic" if the UK government doesn't trust you with the reparations money. Only a fool would trust a pretender and corrupt government as this! What did you do except protect your fellow "officials" who profited from the deal! Are they known?! YES! Did Tanzania prosecute them?! NO! Why not?! That is the norm and culture of this government to protect its fellow corrupts. So the UK does its bit and all of a sudden Tanzania "officials" feel humiliated if they don't get this money too! What a shame . . . .
0#8Anatory Ngaiza2011-06-24 11:25
It is not the people of Tanzania who are humiliated but our leaders who cannot be trusted.Imagine while Mr Membe was presenting the issue into Parliament, the man accused to have caused such a huge loss of money was right there in parliament. Ever since the scandal was uncovered by SFO, no official was taken to task by our government. This gives a clear indication that our government leaders have a lot of questions to answer instead of crying foul to BaE System.
It's quite clear that our government does not have the right to supervise the distribition of that money because even after knowing that the money was paid illegally the did nothing apart from protecting the culprits. Our leaders are to blame right from the start.

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