DAR ES SALAAM, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Thursday appointed John Mbungo director general of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) following recovery of huge amount of money embezzled by cooperatives officials.
Until his new appointment, Mbungo was acting director general of the east African nation's anti-corruption watchdog.
Magufuli made the appointment after the PCCB had recovered 8.8 billion Tanzanian shillings (about 3.8 million U.S. dollars) that were embezzled by agricultural marketing cooperatives (AMCOS) across the country.
"You have done a commendable job by recovering such a colossal amount of money that was earmarked to pay farmers for their crops. You deserve to be promoted," Magufuli told Mbungo.
The president made the appointment shortly after he had received two annual reports from the Controller and Auditor General and the PCCB at the Chamwino State House in the capital Dodoma, an event televised live by state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation.
On March 14, 2020, Mbungo revealed that the anti-corruption watchdog had recovered 3.8 million U.S. dollars that was embezzled by agricultural marketing cooperatives across the country.
He said the money has been recovered between November 2019 and February 2020.
He said the recovered amount was part of 124 billion shillings that the Minister for Agriculture Japhet Haonga had tasked the anti-graft body to investigate following reports of misuse of the money by AMCOS officials.
Mbungo said out of the recovered money, some was voluntarily surrendered by AMCOS officials who had embezzled it and some was surrendered after the officials were interrogated by PCCB.
