Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli has sacked two senior officials for opening a fake account to siphon money from fund set up to help September quake victims.

According to media sources, Regional Administrative Secretary Amantius Msole and the Bukoba City Municipal Council Director Steven Makonda opened up an account with the same names as the one opened by the government of Tanzania, ostensibly to siphon money from the quake fund.

The fund has since collected billions of Tanzania shillings, money to be used in the reconstruction efforts in the ravaged areas.

Early this month a 5.7 Richter scale earthquake ravaged the Kagera region, killing 19 people and destroying thousands of homes in northern Tanzania.

As a result several countries, organisations and individuals made material and cash contributions including Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who contributed US$200, 000.

Since he came to power about a year ago, Magafuli has distinguished himself as a hands-on president, making surprise visits to institutions that have a history of non-service delivery. In the process several top public servants have lost their jobs.

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The United Nations has expressed disappointment over a new delay in Somalia’s presidential and legislative elections, and expressed hope that the balloting will be ‘transparent and credible’.

The UN special representative for Somalia, Michael Keating, said on Tuesday that UN officials are worried about the postponement – the latest in a series of election delays in the troubled Horn of Africa country.

“The renewed delay raises a number of fears. Let me name just two: that the process is being politically manipulated, and that this delay may only be one of yet further ‘rolling delays’,” Keating told the UN Security Council.

“The urgency and the momentum must be maintained and the additional time used to ensure that the process is as transparent and credible as possible,” he said.

On Monday, election officials in the capital Mogadishu announced they were pushing back elections from October to November due to security issues and administrative problems.

Omar Mohamed Abdulle, the chairman of the electoral commission, said the delayed presidential election would now take place on November 30, while parliamentary elections would be held from October 23 to November 10.

The presidential vote was originally scheduled to take place in August.

Somalia, which was supposed to hold national elections this year, has instead scheduled a limited franchise election in which ordinary citizens do not participate.

Speaking before the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday, Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abdusalam H Omer reassured diplomats of ‘the unwavering commitment of the federal government to holding a credible and inclusive electoral process in 2016’.

Omer blamed the delays on issues such as the need for presidents of Somali states to name candidates for the upper house, agreements with tribal elders in certain regions, and security concerns in parts of the country where the armed group al-Shabaab remains a threat.

Al-Shabaab has increased attacks on military bases across parts of south and central Somalia in recent months and regularly stages assaults in the capital.

“We are fully engaged in working to ensure that more Somalis than ever before can have a say in the future governance of their country,” he said.

Somalia has been at war since 1991. The government said threats from al-Shabaab prevented it from organising a one-person, one-vote election.

Instead, about 14,000 people representing federal states across the nation will choose the new lawmakers.

The outgoing parliament, elected in 2012, was picked by only 135 elders.

Al-Shabaab, which wants to impose strict Islamic law, has called on its followers to kill clan elders, officials and lawmakers taking part in the parliamentary election and to attack polling venues

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At interactive dialogues on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Libya and Burundi, senior UN human rights officials and independent experts urged the governments to take immediate steps to ensure protection of human rights in their respective countries.

During the dialogues, member countries of the Geneva–based Human Rights Council discuss the human rights situation with delegations from a particular country on the Council’s agenda, as well as other Council members, officials of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts.

The dialogue includes a presentation or a briefing by OHCHR officials followed by discussions.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

On the human rights situation in DRC, Kate Gilmore, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights noted with concern that on 19 and 20 September, at least 53 people, including 49 civilians, had been killed in clashes in capital Kinshasa and said that it was particularly worrying that manifestly excessive and lethal force had been deployed by security forces against crowds.

She noted with further concern that the reports of journalists and photographers being rounded up prior to those incidents were deeply disturbing, and stressed that a large-scale crisis could be looming. As such, she urged all actors to pursue a resolution to the situation.

Ms. Gilmore also called on the Council to augment its scrutiny of the human rights situation in the country and to join the call for investigations into alleged human rights violations there.

Libya

In her presentation of the human rights situation in Libya, Ms. Gilmore was joined by Martin Kobler, the head of the UN support Mission in the country, known as UNSMIL, who expressed support for the High Commissioner’s proposal to the Council to establish an independent expert, under the special procedures, to report on human rights and accountability in Libya.

Ms. Gilmore said situation in Libya is distressing with little hope of resolution in immediate sight. Perpetrators – not without foundation – believe there are no consequences for their actions. Victims believe for good reason that there are few prospects for justice. All Libyans suffer in this current impunity scenario.

She noted that investigation report described how all parties were committing widespread violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and abuses of human rights, with impunity. Six months on, the situation has not improved.

“Warring factions continue to show little regard for civilians –failing to take steps needed to avoid or minimise civilian casualties and protect civilian objects from damage,” she said, adding that in residential areas across Libya, heavy weaponry has been deployed without ensuring sufficient precautions and this is true of all parties.

Burundi

The Council also heard an oral presentation of the final report of the UN Independent Investigation in Burundi (UNIIB), was published Tuesday 20 September and describes “abundant evidence of gross human rights violations,” possibly amounting to crimes against humanity, by the Government of Burundi and people associated with it.

Given their findings which “suggest widespread and systemic patterns of violations,” the country’s history of inter-ethnic violence and impunity, and the danger of a spiral of mass violence, the experts urged the Government of Burundi, the African Union, the UN Human Rights Council, the Security Council and other international actors to take a series of robust actions to preserve the achievements made in the Arusha Accord and in the 2005 Constitution, which led to the longest period of peace Burundi has known since its independence.

These include the immediate setting up of an international Commission of Inquiry, the involvement of other independent international judicial processes, reconsideration of Burundi’s membership of the Human Rights Council and possible invocation of Chapter VII of the UN Charter if the violations continue and the Government continues to fail to comply with a 29 July 2016 Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of a UN police force.

Burundi was thrown into crisis more than a year ago when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term that he went on to win. To date, it has been reported that hundreds of people have been killed, more than 240,000 have fled the nation, and thousands more have been arrested and possibly subjected to human rights violations.

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