The essential contribution of the North Elbian Mission Centre in Hamburg to the embezzlement and the "art of stealing" in the Lutheran diocese in Makete (ELCT / SCD).

The German Missions Association NMZ http://www.nmz-mission.de, is involved in grand corruption and theft of donations in Tanzania through its former employee.

According to the former Secretary General of the SCD (South Central Diocese, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania) a NMZ fellow was assigned as head of the diocese financial department up to June 2004. She is said having worked on a well paid missionary contract for 4 years. The contract was obviously paid from resources designated to help the development of the poor rural Makete population.

According to an independent audit done by Moses and Company (the coversheets of the reports read: MOSES AB & COMPANY CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS IN PUBLIC PRACTICE, P.O. BOX 2412,TEL 2502182 MOBILE:0744-010057, MBEYA.) and ASHVIN SOLANKI AND COMPANY (CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS IN PUBLIC PRACTICE REGISTERED TAX & MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS P.O.BOX 1537 - TEL: 2702951 - IRINGA - TANZANIA) for the years 2003 and 2004 in the South Central Diocese of the ELCT http://www.elct.org/ apparently several 100,000 Euros mostly from church donations, as well as from government grants and Tanzanian tax payers money, disappeared from different accounts owned by the diocese.
For the periods before 2003 and after 2004 there is no reliable independent audit available. The several internal audits of ELCT headquarters are contradicting and indicating fraud and involvement of the ELCT auditdepartment.
Anyhow, the case of the South Central Diocese seems only to be a role case and worst case example for the lack of audit capacity within the whole of the ELCT.
No external or independent audits are done as a routine exercise in the whole of the ELCT.
Only half of the internal ELCT audits (obviously fraudulent and biased) are said to be given unqualified opinion.
Despite NMZ and other missions from Germany, co-financed the first independent audit of the South Central Diocese (not the whole ECLT - only one diocese! The only one!) for the years 2003 and 2004, the question remains open, why the NMZ in the aftermath apparently did not take strong consequences regarding the obvious implication of its own employee and organization in the frauds.
Under the supervison of the NMZ employee in Makete (SCD) structures were built or maintained, which do not comply with the constitution and laws of Tanzania and which facilitated the disposal of large sums of money leading to a complete standstill of nearly all projects in the Diocese and to the ongoing dying of the poor and the frustration of the honest.
The problems in the diocese are known for years to all the donor missions (including NMZ) and affect not only Bulongwa Lutheran Hospital as the most saddening case. After participating the uncovering of the frauds within ELCT and the involvment of the concerned overseas missions, the local Tanzanian clinic staff of the well working HIV/AIDS Clinic was kicked out under severe violation of their human rights in April 2006.
Later on no proper HIV / AIDS clinic was working and the death toll within the people living with HIV/AIDS increased. The Lutheran church and the financing missions are responsible for the death and suffering of several patients as they never spole out against the violations of their human rights through churhc representatives who still hold the stolen donor money up to this date.

The honest who are fighting corruption and for the rights of their community were and are still punished by a criminal international church network.

Nobody from the local bishop’s level up to the Lutheran World Federation reacted in a way supporting laws and moral and none of them defend the lives of the dying and betrayed people in Makete. The financial irregularities in the years 2003/2004 were repeatedly brought to attention to the current director and to the "Africa-expert" of the NMZ from several sides - including statements from a Tanzanian accountant (CPA - Certified Public Accountant) . They never found it worth to substantially react to the Tanzanian nationals who approached them and asked for clarifications. They let their relatives die.

There was no reaction in the sense of firm protection of the local population who were suffering under the conmen in the cloth.

The whereabouts of the funds donated by well meaning church goers in Europe, it is still totally unclear, and the public was not given any background information by church or mission representatives! Again a violation of human rights by NMZ, ELCT and other Missions by withhelding information and deniying the public its rights to be informed. The matter was declared an internal church matter.

The current Director of NMZ and the "Africa-expert" are holding their responsible posts at NMZ since a time after the basic decisions were made, which facilitated and empowered ("financed") the corrupt environment in Makete. That makes one suspiciously questioning why the Director of NMZ, who is scientifically dealing with the issue of corruption in the church's development cooperation and his "Africa expert" do not force the matter of fraud, human rights abuses and death of innocent patients to an independent juridical forum in Germany and Tanzania.

Through lack of transparency and withholding the information about the exact amount of money flowing at which particular time to which particular account and for which purpose, they actively deny Africans their rights for a strong and fair legal system, transparency and the chance of redress and find money stolen by church officials from the poor and the taxpayers of Tanzania.

The "Africa-expert" of NMZ is connected to Makete since long and knows the problematic situation since years, especially through his previous project assessment visits. These visits were obviously another waste of donor money serving to protect criminals rather than openly and transparently advocating for justice.

Critics of the NMZ policy and the policy of other overseas missions – were for a long time neglected (“we cannot read all these mails”).

Later, under the current leadership of NMZ the messengers and critics were witchhunted, the issue was personalized and the people who spoke about the issue were designated as liars and their "disrespectful language" was declared to be the problem.
Neither in the ELCT leadership, nor in the Lutheran Mission Counsel of Tanzania, nor in the Lutheran World Federation, the fate of the betrayed and dying poor were worth a single word of regret or any move to secure the oppressed poor their lives and basic human rights.

At a conference about corruption in the church's development cooperation held in Hamburg late 2007 under the participation of Transparency International, a picture of the situation of corruption in Tanzania was given, which had little to do with facts, the reality and situation on the ground. The problem of human rights violations by corrupt thieves - empowered through the stolen ressources - in the African churches was completely neglected and the share of NMZ and other financing missions, who are sustaining corrupt structures, which leads to frustration of the poor was not made to an issue.

The long standing resistance against transparent and legal ways to actively deal with the matter, the resitance to actively implement laws and constitutions was left out in any discussion.

(During the last 2 decades, several such "no-particular-outcome-meetings-about-corruption" of mission representatives from all over Germany were organized. The problem of corruption in their own projects which is increasing the weight on the back of the poor by the ongoing financial support of the corrupt elites was not an issue, the meetings ended up in being mere talking shops while the uninformed poor went on suffering.)

NMZ - experts and aid workers and "groups" were and are providing donor funded assistance which is undermining the fabric of the african society and its legal traditional and modern systems.

The well documented fact that church organizations and missions are carelessly supporting corruption and undemocratic colonial power shifts should one make raise an eyebrow: The bible teaches us that we should be better than the law.

Corrupt and criminal structures are kept alive by churches through their development assistance resources and through intermediate agencies, like the LMC (Lutheran Mission Counsel of Tanzania, a non registered informal body, where foreign mission and their voting representatives and ELCT bishops are distributing hundreds of millions of TSH every year to - in some case criminal - church leaders under nearly total exclusion of Tanzanian and European public and without any proper audit or documentation or clear information about "irregularities").
Donor missions continue to support structures like the ones built up under the leadership of former Makete Bishop Manyiewa and NMZ experts.

Tanzanians were, inter alia, denied the right for good health care, because their HIV / AIDS clinic was violently closed and never returned to the same quality after it was reopened.

More than ever, I believe that the responsible mission secretaries in Europe must resign and the financial accounts in Europe and Tanzania must be fully disclosed and those responsible for thefts and embezzlements in Tanzania and in other countries must be held accountable for damaging societies in developing countries through money given by well meaning small donors who thought to help the poor and achieved the opposite.