Flagship university faces probe over missing finances

Tanzania’s flagship University of Dar es Salaam is under investigation by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee for the mismanagement of university funds.

An audit report for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 fiscal years presented to the parliamentary committee earlier this month shows that approximately US$0.5 million was lost on unretired imprest from workers and US$0.2 million on salaries to ghost workers at the university.

The committee chairperson Nagenjwa Kaboyoka told University World News that the university has been given one month to table a full report on the problematic areas flagged by the audit report.

“All we want to know is the reasons behind the huge loss of money at the institution, which officials at the university are responsible for, before we can take action,” said Kaboyoka, who suggested that poor financial management at the university was behind the losses.

University of Dar es Salaam Vice-chancellor Professor Rwekaza Mukandala said the university management was looking into all the allegations raised by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee and a report would be ready within the month.

During the committee meeting, held under tight security, the vice-chancellor said he was not aware of any mismanagement at the university and was not involved. “Whether there is loss of money at the university or not, I can’t confirm until we are through with our internal investigations,” said Mukandala.

But Kaboyoka said the university may have violated the country's Public Accounts Act.

“The committee has information that financial mismanagement was being committed by officials from reputed institutions of higher learning, and the University of Dar es Salaam was one of them,” she said, adding that the committee would take action against those linked to the loss, either directly or indirectly.

“The university’s financial status report contains discrepancies,” she said.

Last year the University of Dar es Salaam was among 31 universities ordered to recover and return money paid to 2,192 phantom students in 2015-16. The order followed a joint investigation carried out by the Higher Education Students' Loans Board and the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau. The university was ordered to repay about US$0.31 million issued to 350 students who could not be traced.

The University of Dar es Salaam is among the African universities which changed its university funding policies to that of cost sharing with the government in order to maintain the quality of academic programmes and widen access. The government thus has an interest in ensuring that the internal audit reports tallies with the external audit report.