The Citizen
(Dar es Salaam)
20 May 2008
The United States yesterday declared that it was ready to help the Government establish the whereabouts of former Bank of Tanzania governor Daudi Ballali.
US embassy spokesperson Jeffery Salaiz told The Citizen: "We are ready to assist the Government to establish where Dr Ballali is we can do that anytime.
"The problem is that so far nobody from the Government has lodged special request with the US embassy asking us to help in tracing the former governor.
"If they haven't made an official request it will be very difficult for us to do anything about Dr Ballali," Mr Salaiz said.
The US move comes amid reports that Tanzanian detectives were dispatched to the US last Thursday to get important information Dr Ballali is believed to be harbouring about various scandals that have rocked BoT in recent years.
There have been contradicting reports on the whereabouts of Dr Ballali, who left the country for the US last September ostensibly to undergo a medical check-up.
The Government has so far remained mum on the whereabouts of Dr Ballali, who was in charge at BoT when Sh133 billion was siphoned out of the bank through the External Payments Arrears (EPA) account in the 2005/6 financial year.
Asked whether the US embassy knew exactly where Dr Ballali was, Mr Salaiz said: "We don't know the US processes visas for about 2 million people every day, and that is why it is difficult for us to tell exactly where he is. But we can get him if he is still there."
This is the second time for the US to speak on the whereabouts of Dr Ballali, who is believed to have information on who exactly was behind the EPA scandal.
In February, the US ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Mark Green, denied rumours that Dr Ballali was a US citizen.
Mr Green said the US government had not made any decision on deporting Dr Ballali to Tanzania because the Tanzanian government had not requested for his extradition.
Challenged to explain how the American government could revoke someone's visa without kicking them out, Mr Green said they could not "go knocking on every door looking for illegal immigrants".
"A citizen of the United States of America is not required to apply for a permit to enter the country. Ballali is not an American citizen," he said.
Dr Ballali, who was BoT governor for about a decade before he was fired in January this year, was yesterday said to be resting at his home in the US state of Maryland.
According to one of his lawyers, Dr Ballali had never left US since he went there on medical grounds last September.
But the source could not give details on what is he suffering from apart from insisting that "he is still alive although his health has deteriorated since the end of last year".
According to the lawyer, who requested for anonymity, Dr Ballali's main concern was that his image and dignity had been damaged in the last few months, adding that he was willing to come back home to clear his name.
"I met this man just three weeks ago and he is recovering well but he is highly disappointed by the way the EPA scandal was handled by the Government," he added.
The Citizen also established that security agents dispatched to US last Thursday were not under orders to arrest Dr Ballali, but to extract information from him.
"This is just an ordinary procedure of finding useful information he was the governor of the central bank and he still has more details that can help the Government," a source, speaking on condition of strict anonymity, told The Citizen yesterday.
Senior government officials are said to be worries that Dr Ballali is secretly planning to leak information on how various shady deals, including the EPA scam, were planned and executed.
He is believed to have compiled a detailed report on how everything was done during his tenure as the head of BoT.
Apart from the EPA scandal, the name of Dr Ballali has also been linked to the $400 million 'Twin Towers' project, $153 million Meremeta/Tangold project and Mwananchi Gold Company Ltd.
Copyright © 2008 The Citizen. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
Balali has legal residency in the US from his long tenure at the World Bank where his wife still works. He is not hiding. The Govt know where he is and are not looking for him as it suits them for him to be away than in the country.If they wanted him back the first call would have been seeking the assistance of the US Embassy in Dar. These detectives in the US have gone there to interview him ( not seek extradition )so any damage that he might do by his presence in TZ is contained. The cat is… [Read Full Text]