Former Civic United Front (CUF) national chairman Prof Ibrahim Lipumba addresses journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
The fate of Zanzibar lies specifically in the hands of the new President. He should direct the Electoral Commission to announce the October 25 General Election results.
The former CUF national chairman, Prof Ibrahim Lipumba said that the intervention by President Magufuli who is Commander in Chief will help to rescue the archipelago from political unrest likely to occur in due course.
Speaking in Dar es Salam yesterday, Prof Lipumba told journalists that the decision by ZEC to invalidate the election results was contrary to the law.
He said that the Commission Chairman Jecha Salim Jecha invalidated the election results citing gross violation of irregularities..
The annulment of the results came after CUF presidential candidate Seif Sharif Hamad declared himself as the winner before the results were officially announced by ZEC.
Prof Lipumba said the law does not allow either ZEC or its chairman to cancel the results and set another date for re-election.
“In a bid to safeguard peace and security of the nation especially in Zanzibar, the president should direct ZEC to announce the results as it was quite clear that all election ballots signed by election supervisor showed that the CUF's presidential candidate in Zanzibar, Hamad won the polls,” he said.
He said his party was disappointed by the decision by ZEC chairperson to announce the results of representatives from CUF and Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and invalidate presidential results which he said was against the law.
“Until October 28, ZEC had completed announcing the results of 40 constituencies, and only 14 were remaining, the results of the respective constituencies were submitted to the Commission by election supervisors of which according to the documents CUF won the polls,” he said.
He said that they were surprised by the delays in announcing the results of the remaining 14 constituencies, the work which he said would not have taken more than three hours due to the number of voters.
According to him, election results presented to the commission and signed by election supervisors showed that CUF had garnered 207,832 votes against CCM which got 181,961 votes.
Commenting on the country economic status Prof Lipumba said that the country socio-economic growth was not good..
He said this year’s budget does not reflect the actual revenue collections because the government expenditure was higher than the collected amount.
Prof Lipumba cited the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) October report which showed that in 2014/2015 financial year budget collections was not reflecting the actual budget because the government planned to collect 12.178b/- but managed to raise only 10.507bn/-.
“The total amount which was not collected by the government through the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) was 1, 671bn/- which is almost 14 per cent of the budget estimates,” said Prof Lipumba.
He said that local government authority including district and councils, villages and wards were supposed to collect 458.5bn/- but they managed to get 360.1bn/- equivalent o 78.5 per cent of the budget projection.
Prof Lipumba also said donors support fund was suppose to be 1,481bn/- but the government received only 1,024bn/- and failed to collect 457bn/- equivalent to 31 per cent.
He said shortage of revenue collection had greatly disrupted development activities. The government planned to spend 6, 473bn/- but only 3, 860bn/- were channeled to development activities equivalent to 60 percent of the money approved by the National Assembly.
“President Magufuli took over the budget system which lack expenditure discipline and transparency, the budget approved by Parliament does not reflect the budget implemented by the government, approximate expenditures are higher than net income,” he said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN