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DAR ES SALAAM. – Tanzanian President John Magufuli has sacked a senior official with the country’s anti-corruption watchdog for failing to attend a meeting called by the president in the country’s southern region of Mtwara.

Magufuli, on a four-day working tour of the East African nation’s southern regions of Lindi and Mtwara, sacked the commander of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) for Mtwara region after he failed to show up at the meeting in Chigugu village in Masasi district.

The president had summoned the official at the meeting televised live by state broadcaster, Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, to explain how his anti-corruption office was addressing reported loss of millions of Tanzanian shillings earmarked for paying cashew nuts growers.After President Magufuli was told that the official was not in the presidential entourage he ordered his immediate replacement.

He directed the PCCB acting director-general John Mbungo to assign the Mtwara region PCCB commander other duties and appoint another official to replace him. The villagers had complained to the president that some officials with the Agricultural Marketing Co-operative Societies and cooperative unions in Mtwara region had misappropriated funds earmarked to pay cashew nuts farmers for the 2018-2019 farming season. -Xinhua