Tanzania’s flagship University of Dar es Salaam is under investigation by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee for the mismanagement of university funds. An audit report for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 fiscal years presented to the parliamentary committee earlier this month shows that approximately US$0.5 million was lost on unretired imprest from workers and US$0.2 million on salaries to ghost workers at the university. The committee chairperson suggested that poor financial management at the university was behind the losses.

Public institutions have until next Friday to submit reports on investigations they have conducted on ghost workers, according to the Minister of State in the President's Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance). She noted that in the coming few days she would hand over the final report on ghost workers to the President, comprising reports filed by all public institutions ordered to conduct the audit. She said that as of yesterday, her office had received reports from 264 out of 409 institutions, of which 63 indicated that they did not have ghost workers.

The report focuses on the discovery of thousands of ghost teachers and pupils in Columbia, which came to light during the annual audit by the Ministry of Education. This state audit was carried out in 36,000 education secretariats across the country.