dar-es-salaam-tanzania-shutterstock_302898686.jpg

Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital. Shutterstock

John Magufuli, elected in 2015, has embarked on an aggressive anti-corruption drive in a country where graft and inefficiency are considered major impediments to private sector investment.

He ordered that the names of the 9,932 workers with falsified academic certificates be published to name and shame wrongdoers, who he described as thieves that should face the full force of the law.

The audit into Tanzania’s civil service also found that 1,538 academic records were being used by more than one official, while 11,596 staff had incomplete records. Magufuli said inquiries into both should continue.

Tanzania has around 550,000 civil servants employed at the national or local level, paid a total of $257m in the month of February 2016 alone.

The government believes the wage bill – expected to total around $3bn in 2016/17 – is bloated. That accounts for around 37% of the government’s expected revenue raised from taxes and other domestic sources.

In March last year, the government purged its payroll of 19,700 “ghost workers” that had been costing the government $107m annually.