TANZANIA WINS THE BAE PAYMENT ARGUMENT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN LONDON

From Second Left Hon John cheyo MP,Mussa Zungu MP, Mrs Kariuki MP and Hugh Bailey MP in the house of commons today

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By Ayoub mzee-London

International Development Committee questioned DFID, MOJ, The Serious Fraud office and BAE Systems on Financial Crimes today in committee Committee Room 8, The Palace of Westminster. The Committee took evidence from:

At 10.00

• Philip Bramwell, Group General Counsel, BAE Systems PLC
• Bob Keen, Head of Government Relations, BAE Systems PLC
• Lord Cairns, Independent Chair, BAE Systems PLC Advisory Board on Tanzania

At 10.45

• Richard Alderman, Director, Serious Fraud Office

At 11.30

• Rt Hon Alan Duncan, Minister of State, Department for International Development
• Rt Hon Lord McNally, Minister of State, Ministry of Justice
• Phil Mason, Head, Anti- Corruption, Department for International Development
• Joy Hutcheon, Acting Director General, Department for International Development
• Tim Jewell, Deputy Director, Criminal Law Team, Legal Directorate, Ministry of Justice

This was a one-off evidence session with two broad aims.

The first and second panels examined the background to the agreement between BAE Systems and the Serious Fraud Office arising from the criminal offence of improper book keeping, which BAE Systems admitted in connection with the sale of a military Air Traffic Control system to the government of Tanzania. The panels also addressed the issue of how the people of Tanzania will benefit from the reparations that BAE Systems has agreed to pay.

The third panel examined the BAE Systems and Tanzania case as well as whether the case allows any general lessons to be drawn about how best to combat financial crimes, including bribery, in developing countries.

The session also went on to look at the working of the Bribery Act and the Government’s guidance.

The UK parliamentary committee which comprised of Malcom Bruce MP (Chair lib Dems ),Hugh Bailey MP (Labour )Richard Burden(Labour), Sam Gyimah (Conservatives),Richard Hamington Mp (Conservatives),Pauline Latham (conservatives) Jeremy Lefroy MP( conservatives) ,Michael Maccann MP(conservatives)Anas SarwarMP(Labour) ,Chris white MP ( conservatives) were appalled by the fact that The $47 million that BAE has been ordered to pay to the 'Tanzanian people' will be dispersed via selected NGOs, rather than to the government of Tanzania and were also amazed at the length of time BAE is taking to reach a decision.

The DFID was in the view that they have a great respect of the Tanzania parliamentary scrutiny procedures, a growing investigative journalism and government collective responsibility. DFID said that if Tanzania is good enough to account for the budgetary supplementary from the UK , then it must be good enough for the funds from BAE .Hon Alan Duncan, minister of state ,DFID concluded by saying that the only people are good enough to handle this money are the people of Tanzania through their democratically elected government

The low side of this is that the parliamentary committee has no legal powers on BAE in terms of specific performance