The payment of ?29.5 million will go towards helping to educate children in Tanzania
LONDON (TrustLaw) - Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has brokered an agreement between defence giant BAE Systems, the Government of Tanzania and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in which BAE agreed to pay 29.5 million pounds plus interest towards educating children in Tanzania, the anti-corruption agency announced on Thursday.
The payment is part of a February 2010 settlement negotiated between BAE and the SFO following a lengthy enquiry by the SFO into a 28-million-pound deal by the defence company to sell radar systems to Tanzania, for use at Dar-es-Salaam airport.
As part of the settlement, BAE was ordered to pay the money to Tanzania for failing to keep proper records of payments to an adviser in the East African country.
“This agreement is a first for the SFO which piloted it through the UK legal system. It provides a satisfactory outcome for all concerned but most of all for the Tanzanian people and I am personally delighted that SFO staff were able to achieve this,” Richard Alderman, director of the SFO said in a statement.
The payment will be spent on textbooks and desks for Tanzanian primary school children and teaching guides, syllabi and syllabi guides for Tanzanian teachers, the SFO said.
The procurement process will be “rigorously and independently monitored” the SFO added.
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