Do ministers in Tanzania take more responsibility than in the UK?
Tanzania’s infrastructure minister, Andrew Chenge, resigned at the weekend after “being allegedly linked to a controversial BAE Systems defence contract that is being investigated by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office”, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The newspaper provides some background information:
The SFO is probing a 2002 contract under which BAE supplied Tanzania with a military radar system, a deal that was strongly criticised by aid agencies and politicians, including the then UK International Development Secretary Clare Short.
[...]
Despite the SFO abandoning its high-profile investigation into BAE’s Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the fraud office has continued to probe several other overseas deals.Poverty-stricken Tanzania bought a £28m military air traffic control system from BAE, when many experts said a far cheaper civil system would have done.
You can read the full story on the Telegraph website.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Is it the seller or the buyer who is at fault? I cannot see why the Tanzanians wanted a military radar when a civil system or a joint use system would seem more appropriate, but at the end of the day, it was Tanzania that purchased it.
Unless BAe bribed someone in a position of power in the UK to either fund, or permit the sale against UK regulations, then no UK crime would appear to have been committed.
If the Tanzanians purchased the system via the usual system of agents that so many third world countries use and someone creamed off a commission, then that is for Tanzania to resolve.
I find the system used by so many countries of needing a local agent for the purchases of any Government required items odd, but it is how they work and unless you play by their rules you will sell nothing at all.
Thus, all sales to such countries by all suppliers are in the same boat . Prosecuting BAe will not stop this, but merely penalise BAe and the UK.