PCCB probes ‘defective’ notes

INVESTIGATIONS by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) on a German firm in connection with a questionable tender of printing bank notes awarded by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) in 2001 have reached an advanced stage.

A senior government official close to PCCB told the 'Daily News' that several BoT officials have been interrogated in connection with the deal, because a number of issues surrounding the tender warranted investigations. The bureau confirmed in writing that it was investigating Messrs Gieseck & Devrient (G&D) and would issue a statement when the exercise is over.

The German company was on record to have supplied misprinted bank notes to BoT and printed millions of 100 euro notes with defects on security features. In mid 2001 BoT picked G&D which has been printing Tanzanian currency sine June 1996 to undertake the business, after heated discussions by members of the bank’s board of directors.

The sources said that a number of factors linked with the awarding of the tender rose ‘eye brows,’ hence commencement of investigations within the country and abroad. PCCB investigators have carried out investigations over a wide range of allegations, including over pricing compared with other bidders plus the company’s track record.

The German firm hit headline of this newspaper in July last year, after it supplied the central bank with 295 boxes of 1,000/- notes, some misprinted, bearing the portrait of the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Some of the boxes were supplied to Zanzibar, Mbeya and Arusha where hundreds of misprinted notes were detected. Each of the supplied boxes contained 50m/-, some of them containing misprinted notes. The defective notes, supplied in early 2001, were detected after part of the consignment was distributed.

The defect Tanzanian 1,000/- notes had serial numbers reversed , appearing on the left side of the currency instead of on the right perpendicularly. The same serial number, instead of appearing on the left lower side of the note, appeared above Mwalimu Nyerere’s portrait. The notes did not have complete features.

The same company printed 325 million euro notes of 100 denominations and after delivering the consignment to the Germany’s central bank, the Deutsche Bundes Bank, it was detected that security design meant to foil counterfeiting the money on colour copies was misprinted. Some BoT board members questioned (then) the performance of the German firm and suggested the deal to be cancelled, but somehow the same firm was awarded the tender.