Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Mbaraka Abdulwakil
This is contained in a report by the probe team that was
investigating the scandal on employment at the department released
yesterday that said nepotism denied opportunities to the right
candidates.
The government formed the team of five experts from the Ministry of
Home Affairs following public complaints that some employed candidates
were children of senior officials. On the other end some complained that
others were close relatives to Immigration officials across the
country.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Mbaraka Abdulwakil
told newsmen in Dar es Salaam that the team of experts completed it’s
the probe in ten days.
He said, according to the report, some interviewees with high
scores were not selected. He noted that there were some candidates whose
age exceeded the required 25 to 28 years for posts of Police Constable
and Corporal.
Abdulwakil said a total of 15,707 people applied for the posts and
among them 1,005 were called for the interview from which 200 candidates
were selected.
“The team discovered that there was nepotism and favouritism which
denied employment to the right candidates…selection was made without
considering the candidates’ capability,” he said.
He added that even announcement on the job was not clear as it did not specify the age for each post.
Recently, the government put on hold the employment of 70 recruited
Immigration officers following allegations of nepotism and ordered
those told to take up the jobs not to report to their stations unless
directed otherwise.
A leaked document that was circulated to various social media blogs
showed that some of the newly recruited were Immigration employees’
children or close relatives of mostly senior immigration officials.
The claims on nepotism emerged soon after names of successful
candidates were published in the press. They were to formally join the
Immigration Department early this month.
The Department’s job advert for positions of constable and corporal
had attracted a record of over 20,000 applications. It was reported
that out of the 70 new recruits who were soon advised to report at the
Immigration headquarters early this month, 29 were related to bigwigs at
the department.
Of the over 20,000 applicants, 10,800 were shortlisted for a
mammoth interview session which was held at National Stadium in Dar es
Salaam mid-last month.
Screening was conducted at the stadium so as to accommodate the huge number of applicants.
In the end, however, only 6,115 made it to the next round and only 1,681 to the final vetting process.
