Richmond saga resurfaces

The Richmond saga resurfaced in Parliament yesterday, with legislators demanding that a House select committee investigate the circumstances that made the government enter into a contract with the controversial power-generating firm.

In a surprising turn, the demand was met at the end of the day, with MPs Harrison Mwakyembe, Stella Manyanya, Mohammed Mnyaa, Lucas Seleli and James Msangi being appointed by the Speaker to form the probe team. The chairman will be elected later.

The parliamentary probe committee will investigate who is Richmond, who owns Richmond, how the firm secured the power generating contract and whether the method to acquire the contract was legal.

The team will also evaluate Richmond`s contract with Tanesco.

Commenting about the developments, Energy and Minerals minister Nazir Karamagi said the Government would give the committee full support, including furnishing it with all documents it would need.

Earlier, when presenting the 2006 Parliamentary Committee on Investment and Trade Report in the House yesterday, committee chairman William Shellukindo said they were not satisfied by the performance of Richmond Development Corporation and its successor, Dowans Holdings.

Richmond Development Corporation was contracted to generate electricity when the country experienced acute power shortage after hydro-power dams went dry because of drought.

The firm was commissioned to generate 100 megawatts of electricity and connect it into the national grid at a cost of 172.9bn/-.

Power generation, after an initial postponement, was supposed to begin by February this year.

The deadline was once again extended to June, months after the power problem was over.

Shellukindo said Richmond�s inefficiency in executing the project, its lack of experience and adequate financial resources had raised a number of questions among the wananchi as to which criteria the government used to award such a huge project.

`These questions need to answered. We cannot just ignore the people`s outcry. We must give them an answer if we are to uphold principles of democracy and good governance,` he said.

He said although his committee had learnt from the media that the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau was investigating if corruption had a hand in the awarding of the tender to Richmond, he believed that the issue needed to go beyond criminal law.

`This issue touches on leadership ethics. It touches on civil service ethics, diligence and responsibility of a public servant. The issue should go beyond criminal law, which PCCB is dealing with,` he said.

Shellukindo said the government was fully aware of Richmond`s poor performance especially after the firm had failed in 2005 to execute a Dar es Salaam-Mwanza oil pipeline project.

`One wonders what reasons drove the government to award the tender to such an inefficient firm,` he said, adding,` worse still, the government did not even carry out due diligence investigation on Richmond as it had done to other companies that had bid for the tender.`

He said the government did not take trouble to visit Richmond`s website so as to satisfy itself that it was a reputable and serious company.

Shellukindo said all these questions needed answers so that the wananchi could know what had transpired in the whole issue.

He said since it had been difficult to access the contract between Richmond and the government, his committee was invoking rule 104 and 105 of the National Assembly Standing Orders to request that a parliamentary select committee, that would have legal powers to access the contract, be formed to investigate the whole process that led Richmond to be awarded the tender.

Rule 104 gives the House powers to form a select committee for a special purpose on a specific motion moved on that behalf and be supported by the assembly, while rule 105 gives the number of members of the select committee to be not less than five.

On electricity supply, the committee suggested that the government should draw a power system master plan that would spell out how it would deal with the power problem so that last year`s nightmare did not reoccur.

The committee also advised the government to speed up its plan to buy Independent Power Transmission Limited (IPTL) and enable it to use gas instead of crude oil for generating power.

The committee also recommended that plans to turn the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation into a strategic oil reserve should be executed by allocating the money to TPDC.

Commenting on the report, Kilindi MP Beatrice Shellukindo blamed the committee for taking too long to bring the Richmond issue into the House.

`You should have brought this issue when it was still hot. However, I hope people will now believe that this is not a rubber stamp parliament. This will prove that we mean business. The truth of the matter will be known now,` she said.

The MP for Mkanyageni, Mohammed Mnyaa, said although the tender board had refused to award the tender to Richmond, some Government officials went ahead to do the opposite.

`It is important that a select committee be formed,` he said.

Energy and Minerals minister Nazir Karamagi has said the Government will give the committee full support, including furnishing it with all documents it will need.