Tanzanian Minister for Agriculture Hussein Bashe has ordered the arrest of officials after 776 bags, weighing 50 kilograms each, in a warehouse in the country’s southern highlands were found to be filled with sand, instead of subsidized fertilizers.
Bashe ordered the arrest of the southern highlands’ zonal manager for the Tanzania Fertilizer Regulatory Authority based in Njombe region.
“This amounts to economic sabotage of the highest degree,” Bashe said on Sunday.
The minister’s order came after Njombe regional commissioner Anthony Mtaka, who doubles as the chairperson of the regional defense and security committee, informed him about the incident by phone.
Last September, the government of Tanzania released 150 billion Tanzanian shillings (about 64 million U.S. dollars) for fertilizer subsidies. Enditem
