According to various media outlets in Tanzania, the country’s President John Pombe Magufuli has ordered the immediate sacking of 9,932 civil servants who were found to have been employed using forged certificates.
Magufuli also ordered that the names of the employees found to be removed from the Government’s payroll, salaries for the month of April to be withheld and their positions declared vacant with immediate effect.
“They are thieves like any other thieves… you cannot perform if you don’t have deserving qualifications. They should be jailed for seven years as the law says.” Dr Magufuli was quoted by the Paper.
Tanzania government had earlier directed that a verification exercise of academic qualifications to be carried out among all the staff in all the Ministries, Departments and state agencies.
According to Magufuli, the government was losing approximately USD 106.5 Million (TSh238.1 billion) annually to ghost workers.
Certificates of of 435,000 civil servants have already been verified where the 9,932 civil servants had been discovered to have been employed using fake certificates.
