Fear grips investors at Deci offices in Dar es Salaam

Scenes of panic and outbursts characterised operations at almost all Development Entrepreneurship for Community Initiative (Deci) branches in Dar es Salaam yesterday, a day after authorities warned the public against depositing their money in the revolving fund scheme.

However, the firm was seemingly defiant and continued to host clients seeking their services.

Anxious savers, believed to have paid millions of shillings into Deci whose operations were last Friday declared illegal by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) and Capital Market and Securities Authority (CMSA), on the other hand struggled to come to terms with the new development.

A team of Sunday Citizen reporters who were covering the unfolding events was accosted by angry members of the scheme who chased them away from the Deci headquarters in Mabibo.

Sunday Citizen first broke the story about the company�s suspect business that has since been likened to the �pyramid� schemes by BoT.

The firm has been collecting funds from interested depositors and later paid up to 300 per cent returns as interest on the savings for between three to six months.

A spot check at four of the seven branches in the city revealed little official activity, save for clients who thronged them to seek information following the reported official warnings.

A few of the offices were not opened but the Mabibo headquarters was the centre for the dramatic confrontations.

Most of the savers were evidently divided on how to react to the new development, with Deci�s personnel deployed strategically to dissuade anyone from believing what they said were "falsehoods peddled against the poor."

One group, comprising largely of women and older people were eager to continue with the services but were to contend with another big group of younger people who gathered at one corner demanding that their shares be refunded.

Amid the confusion, some unidentified people who claimed to speak on behalf of Deci emerged to accuse commercial banks of an alleged plot to stop its activities.

They charged that by declaring Deci illegal, "the government has given into schemes to fight efforts by the poor to uplift themselves."

As the multitude of clients lined up at the Mabibo offices yesterday, there was drama when The Sunday Citizen photographer Felix Fidelis was manhandled over what they called attempts by the media to make them "live in poverty forever."

Inside the tented compound where women and men took a nap while they waited to be served, a middle aged man addressed them through the loudspeakers, saying that the move to render their firm illegal was orchestrated by banks who felt Deci was eating large into their market share.

"This is a battle by some banks led by evil powers to fight this scheme and perpetuate poverty among masses of Tanzanians," said the unidentified religious leader.

He dismissed some banking professionals about the sustainability of their financial institution arguing that the depositors' money could not have survived for such period of three years, had Deci been unscrupulous.

However, questions are still a bound on the operation since it pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from profit.

Other experts argue that the scheme is selling unregistered securities.

But even as there were bunches of clients who claimed to have come to ask back for their investments, there were still hundreds of other clients lined up to deposit their savings despite the company's refusal to assure its clients about its future.

The Mabibo offices were jammed from as early as 7 in the morning to the afternoon when the rains started.

Some were holding newspaper articles and the BoT advert as points of reference.

But some were defiant and kept asking how an illegal firm would openly operate for over two years without detection or arrests by state organs.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) and Capital Market and Securities Authority (CMSA) issued a joint statement saying the scheme was illegal and warned that the firm was not licensed by the central bank to conduct such operations in the country.

It also said that CMSA had not granted Deci a license to operate collective investments schemes in the country.

Reached by Sunday Citizen on the way forward after the BoT�s warning, the firm's executive director, Mr Ole Loiting'ye said he could not issue a statement as he was just a servant of Deci.

"I can not say anything on the developments, I am just a servant in this firm," he said.

But yesterday, even as BoT warned the public to desist from participating in the scheme, there were significant operations at the Mabibo office for hours.

The company, run by the Jesus Christ Deliverance Church, has collected millions from people who have been attracted by super returns on their deposits.

The Deci Tanzania has registered 500,000 members in a revolving fund scheme whose rapid expansion, opening 37 branches in a short period has raised eyebrows within the micro-finance development sector. An estimated 3000 people visit its Mabibo offices everyday in the peak.