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Written by Lucas Liganga
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 Presidential candidates on a marathon 71-day campaign trail have been making extravagant promises that have prompted analysts and political commentators to warn their outcome could be frustration among the citizenry and disaffection towards the next crop of leaders after the October 31 polls.
In the last two weeks alone of the campaigns across the country, politicians have stopped at nothing to declare what they would do if elected. It is all in what are seen as “desperate” efforts to woo the over 20 million registered voters expected to cast their vote in the General Election.
The commentators are particularly concerned that some politicians are merely out to entice the electorate and are not telling the truth, since most don’t even bother to tell how they plan to implement their huge promises.
Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s Jakaya Kikwete who is in the race to clinch a second and last five-year presidential term has been promising a string of goodies at every stop.
Among the highlights of President Kikwete’s campaign promises so far is to buy a new passenger ship to replace the 500-seat capacity MV Bukoba that capsized in Lake Victoria in 1996, killing at least 1000 people. There is no record for the MV Bukoba cost but it is believed the government would spend billions of shillings to deliver this ship over the unspecified period.
Mr Kikwete has also said his government would supply 400 motorcycle ambulances (bajaj) for ward dispensaries. That would translate to some Sh2 billion.
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Written by Mkinga Mkinga
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 The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) has in its hands a technology to monitor and identify those who use electronic money transfer to bribe others.
As General Election approaches there are reports that candidates and voters have decided to go high tech and use mobile money transfer systems to exchange bribes.
Speaking to this paper last week, the PCCB director general Dr Edward Hoseah said his office had noticed the loophole and went to work immediately.
He said luckily they have come up with technology which, in collaboration with mobile phone companies, they will be able to trace the mobile funds transactions.
Without going into details, Dr Hoseah said they are working on several reports regarding some transactions which they manage to detect.
Bribing voters through mobile money transfer was mooted recently after PCCB put up tight security which made the ‘common’ forms of bribing impossible to implement.
“We are investigating some transactions and we will see the results soon,” said Dr Hoseah.
Currently there are about three mobile money transfer services in the country which are M-PESA provided by Vodacom, Tigo Pesa and Zap which is under Zain. Itr does not one to have a bank account to transfer money.
The mobile money transfer systems were designed to provide customers with increased security and flexibility, reducing the need to carry cash and ensuring payments between friends and family remain secure.
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Written by The Citizen Team
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 Home Affairs minister Lawrence Masha was yesterday accused of using his government position in an alleged attempt to retain his erstwhile Nyamagana parliamentary seat unopposed.
Chadema, whose candidate was also vying for the same seat in Mwanza region was initially blocked after his Tanzanian citizenship was queried, said it was contemplating to have the minister stripped of the right to stand in the October 31 General Election.
Pictured is Mr John Mnyika of Chadema
Addressing a press conference in Dar es Salaam following Tuesday’s decision by the National Electoral Commission to reinstate Mr Ezekieli Wenje as a parliamentary candidate for Nyamagana, Chadema acting deputy secretary general Mr John Mnyika yesterday accused Mr Masha of conducting himself in a manner that smacked of conflict of interest. For that, he said, the minister should be punished.
Mr Mnyika said Chadema would also consider filing a legal suit against the minister for abuse of office. He added that Chadema lawyers are working on the legal modalities.
However, reached for comment yesterday, Mr Masha dismissed the accusations and challenged the opposition party to prove their claims. He said the objection against Mr Wenje that had been filed with NEC was done by his party and therefore, there was nothing personal about it.
“Of course, we logged an objection against Wenje…but I have got nothing to do with the decision made by the Nyamagana returning officer. The allegations that I have used my powers in my favour are baseless,” said Mr Masha.
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Written by Nick Wachira
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 What happens when you bring together one of the world’s shrewdest businessmen in the communication business, with his equal in the region, and one of Kenya’s savviest corporate spin-doctors?
Well, you have a combustible mix that is now turning out to be Scangroup, a Kenyan communications business with interests around Africa in advertising, media buying, public relations, consumer research, and event management.
In Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s CEO who is considered a legend, Bharat Thakrar, the founder of Scangroup who has built the most extensive agency network in Africa, and Koome Mwambia, the head of Ogilvy East Africa, we have a triumvirate with the ambition of reshaping the way business, NGOs, and governments communicate to the world.
In the past six months, since WPP announced that it was going to consolidate its holdings in sub-Saharan Africa by buying out more shares in Ogilvy East Africa, which it partly owned, and Scangroup, in which it had been the biggest shareholder since 2008, the share price of its Kenyan subsidiary on the Nairobi Stock Exchange has doubled to Ksh55 (68 US cents). Scangroup is now worth $138 million on the stock exchange.
This is the kind of reaction that Sir Martin would have expected to this complicated deal, which initially faced major hurdles from competition regulators in Kenya.
But now, both local shareholders and analysts and major foreign portfolio investors seem to be sprinkling holy water all over the deal.
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Written by Adam Ihucha, Abduel Elinaza and Mike Mande
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 The Tanzania government is demanding that the £30 million ($46 million) that Britain’s biggest arms company, BAE Systems, has promised to pay to settle the Watchman radar scandal, be channelled through it.
BAE promised to pay the money in a plea agreement with the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, in a deal to end a six-year investigation into suspected bribery.
However, British papers say the plea is unlikely to come before the courts for approval before November.
Under the deal, the money in questions is be returned “to the Tanzanian people” through various charity organisations rather than through the government, which paid BAE Systems for the purchase of the radar system in the first place.
BAE — which was being investigated in the 1999 multimillion-dollar scandal involving senior government officials, prominent businessmen and ministers, who conspired with the arms dealer to “push a costly and pointless air traffic control system on Tanzania,” in the words of the Financial Times newspaper — admitted only to a single minor bookkeeping offence relating to the sale but nevertheless agreed with the SFO to pay the 30 milion pounds penalty. A third of the Tanzanian contract was allegedly paid in bribes.
The SFO then dropped its charges against those involved in the scandal, who included Tanzanian officials Andrew Chenge (the then Attorney General), tycoon Tanil K.C Somaiya of Shivacom and a middleman named Shailesh P. Vithlani.
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