INACTION and reluctance on the part of most governments to uproot elements of corruption within their systems has always been a main reason why global efforts to get rid of the abiding vice once and for all don't seem to be bearing much fruit over the years.

Public leaders known to have achieved effective progress in the war against graft have tended to be those who honestly could not tolerate it and were willing to give their all in the struggle, with scant regard to how many enemies they made along the way.

In the Tanzanian context, it is our considered opinion that in order to eventually achieve real success in this relentless anti-corruption drive, the onus must always be on putting the wider national interest ahead of individual or self-interests.

That is to say, there is no way the truly patriotic mwananchi can be expected to accept 'politically-correct' solutions to such open-and-shut cases of grand corruption as the now-infamous Richmond power generation scandal.

We see no reason why the government and the ruling CCM should continue to embrace politicians and senior civil servants who have long been inextricably and undisputedly  implicated in Richmond and a slew of similar, well-publicized grand corruption scams.

We feel that the continued presence of such people in key roles of decision-making on behalf of the nation as a whole, can only serve to fan the embers of public distrust in the sitting government of the day – at both local and international levels.

This is precisely why we strongly condemn any attempts, especially by the powers-that-be, to distort public opinion and absolve such people from the need to be accountable for their actions amounting to intentional sabotage of the overall national development agenda.

Just to hammer the point home further, we are talking about NATIONAL development here - not INDIVIDUAL.

It must be understood that scandals of the grand corruption scale can never be consigned to the category of being simply internal matters of CCM or any other political party in the country.

Such matters are the concern of all Tanzanians, irrespective of political leanings.   
 
Coming back to the Richmond affair, now that parliament appears to have offered its last word, the ball is now in the government’s court to ensure a proper and satisfactory closure on the subject.  

It is expected that the relevant authorities will waste little more time in going ahead with the indictment and formal prosecution of the fingered principle culprits in the Richmond scam, along with other similar corruption scandals, regardless of status or position in the leadership establishment.

When handling the war on corruption, it is important to keep in mind the famous adage: “Justice delayed is justice denied’.

And as has been pointed out here earlier, as well as in various other fora (including parliament itself), the government's continuing failure to effectively crack down on grand corruption suspects signals weaknesses in the overall governance system and portrays a bad picture to those who voted for our current leadership.