Dar es Salaam — As part of its broader push for transparency and efficiency, Tanzania has launched a new digital platform that allows public leaders to declare their assets and liabilities.
The Online Declaration System (ODS) allows public leaders to fill in their wealth declaration forms digitally—removing the need for presenting them in person.
The Ethics Secretariat Commission is an independent agency under the President’s office entrusted, to monitor the ethical conduct of public leaders.
It receives, verifies declarations of assets and liabilities belonging to public leaders.
The new move comes as public leaders have been dragging their feet to comply with the Public Leadership Code of Ethics Act of 1995, which obliges them to declare their assets and liabilities to the Ethics Secretariat Commission at the end of each year.
According to the government, the ODS system is designed to cope with changes in science and technology in line with the country’s e-government policy encouraging officials to transact government’s business electronically.
Harold Nsekela, the public ethics commissioner-general told Ubuntu Times that the new electronic system simplifies communications and increases efficiency.
“Many leaders have been giving excuses for failure to submit their assets disclosures, with this new system I don’t see any reasons why they should fail to do so timely,” he said.
According to him, the new system has many advantages since it allows public leaders to fill in and submit the forms on an online platform wherever they may be, reduces printing costs and saves time.
He further said that the ODS system which conforms to legal and constitutional requirement will allow the government to gather the right statistics of public leaders in the country.
“We have had some problems in the past because even those in acting capacities had been filling the forms that is contrary to what the law says,” he said.
Stanslaus Mwita, Head of Information Communication and Technology at the secretariat told Ubuntu Times that the digitized system has been designed to eliminate the need for a physical walk to collect, fill in and return the forms, adding that it simplifies work and allows public leaders to return the form without delay.
According to the Public Leadership Code of Ethics Act, number 13 of 1995, the secretariat is directed to monitor ethical conduct and behavior of public leaders.
The law contains a key confidentiality clause on the declaration of assets, which gives the general public unlimited access to asset disclosure records but restrict them to publicly disclose the information seen.
Under section 9(1) of the existing law, every public leader is required, at the end of each term of office to submit to the commissioner written declaration of all property or assets owned by, or liabilities owed to him, his spouse or unmarried minor children.
The law establishes a statutory basis for standards of public leaders’ ethics aimed at strengthening ethics, accountability, and transparency of political leaders.
In Tanzania, public leaders are expected to act in honesty, compassion, sobriety, and uphold the highest possible ethical conduct so that public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity, and impartiality of government can be enhanced.
According to the law, officials who fail to declare their assets are liable to a warning, demotion, suspension, dismissal.
However, analysts say public leaders who fail to declare ill-gotten wealth often go unpunished because the secretariat has no teeth, and the failure to declare assets is deeply rooted in institutional weakness.
Speaking with Ubuntu Times, Ali Hapi a Regional Commissioner in Iringa who has declared his assets and liabilities welcomed the move saying it will further enhance transparency and foster accountability.
“Transparency is crucial in increasing accountability, assets declaration forms should be easily accessible online for anyone to access at any time,” he said.
He observed that the existing law does not deter leaders from engaging in private business while in public office.
“The law should clearly state that no public official will engage in business while holding political responsibilities, this will prevent abuse of office,” he said.