Thu, 7 Feb 2008 13:29:20

BRAVO THE PRIME MINISTER

SOMETHING MR. SAMUEL KIVUITI NEEDS TO EMULATE TO SAVE KENYA...


Tanzanian PM Edward Lowassa  to resign over graft

Mr Lowassa said he had not been given a chance to respond

Tanzania's prime minister has tendered his resignation after being implicated in an energy deal corruption scandal.

"Because I have been linked to this scandal, I have decided to write to the president asking to be relieved of my duties," Edward Lowassa told MPs.

He said he had not been given a chance to respond to allegations that his office improperly awarded a contract to a US-based electricity company.

The firm failed to provide emergency power during a power crisis in 2006.

The BBC's Vicky Ntetema in Dar es Salaam says a drought early that year had left water levels in dams low leading to severe power cuts.

Richmond was contracted to bring in generators to provide 100 megawatts of electricity each day.

But a parliamentary inquiry, launched in November, has found that the generators failed to arrive on time and when they did, they did not work.

Despite these failings, the government was contracted to pay Richmond $140,000 a day.

Mr Lowassa's office extended Richmond's contract despite the problems, the inquiry alleges.

Richmond "lacked experience, expertise and was financially incapacitated", ruling party MP Harrison Mwakyembe, who headed the investigation, is quoted by Tanzania's Guardian newspaper as telling parliament on Wednesday.

Our correspondent says Mr Lowassa, who entered politics in the 1980s, is a very close ally of President Jakaya Kikwete who came to power in 2005.

But this is not his first brush with controversy.

Under President Ali Mwinyi, he was relieved of his duties as land minister because of allegations of corruption made by Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's respected independence leader.

        - Sent by JK