All Sacked Officials to Be Prosecuted - Tanzanian President Dr. Magufuli has Vowed

PRESIDENT John Magufuli has said all government leaders and other public officials who of late have been sacked, suspended or relieved of their duties due to misconduct, including
corruption, embezzlement of funds and economic sabotage, will be dragged to courts of law.

Dr Magufuli stated that the ongoing ‘clean-up’ exercise to flush out such leaders and officials will not end with them being served with suspension or dismissal letters but they should be prepared to appear before courts of law and, possibly, prisons.

“They should not think they can rest on their laurels and spend whatever they had stolen during their terms in office; we are going to drag all of them to court and eventually dump them into jail,” stated President Magufuli, adding that as much as they caused other people to suffer, it is now their turn to also agonise in jail. He cited an example of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) officials who were recently suspended for negligence.

“These officials have caused a 400bn/- loss to the government. Just imagine such amount can buy how many planes. These officials must be sent to court of law,” he revealed.

Last month, the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, Professor Makame Mbarawa, suspended three TCRA officials for failing to supervise operations of the Telecommunication Traffic Monitoring System (TTMS).

The officials are Director of Legal Department Elizabeth Nzagi, Acting Director of Information Communication Technology Department, Engineer Sunday Richard, and Acting Director of Legal Department, Modestus Ndunguru.

He was addressing thousands of residents of Arusha who had gathered at Tengeru along the Moshi-Arusha Highway to witness the ground-breaking ceremony for the ongoing construction of four-track motorway linking Sakina and Tengeru sections of the road.

President Magufuli, his Kenyan counterpart, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, jointly launched the road project, which will also extend to as far as Holili-Taveta border in Kilimanjaro Region and eventually to Voi, on the Kenyan side of the border.

Dr Magufuli pointed out that the exercise to flush rogue officials from the government and public offices wasn’t that easy but vowed that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for such difficult task.

“Otherwise, there is no reason for me being president; I may as well go home and sleep,” he insisted amid applause. Speaking on the project, Dr Magufuli ordered Prof Mbarawa to make sure that the project would be completed in time.

“I am taking it as own responsibility to ensure that the construction is completed in time, because dismissing a contractor who fails to adhere to time, is an easy task,” stated President Magufuli.

President Magufuli caused laughter when he joked that it was now time for people to seek marriage partners from across the borders. “We have made roads smooth for you so that you may have breakfast in Nairobi and dinner in Dar es Salaam or Kampala; and if you have a wife, then it is easy to marry a second one from another country,’’ he quipped.

On his part, Mr Kenyatta, told Tanzanians as well as other East African residents not to take territorial borders separating them seriously as they were drawn by colonialists who were comfortably seated in Berlin (Germany) many years ago.

“Those who drew the borderlines dividing the people of East Africa had never been here and cared less of the fact that the lines they drew separated members of the same families, grouping them into countries and inhibiting their social and economic developments,” stated President Kenyatta.

He praised the people of Tanzania who ignored the border inhibitions and proceeded to do business with their Kenyan counterparts regardless of beacons.

“It is us leaders and our government officials who still worship the colonialists by reinforcing those rules at the expense of our people and their development. Instead of supporting our people’s free movement, governments and their security organs are busy preventing them from connecting and trading with each other, through unnecessary bureaucracy,” he observed.

The East African Community (EAC) member states sealed their common market protocol in July 2010, paving way for free movement of people, labour and capital between the five countries.

However, its execution has been slow and almost non-practical to date. President Museveni reminded his audience that joining East African Community was more than just knitting together countries.

It means pooling together resources and manpower because unless we have joint forces, we cannot defeat outside forces that are not only stronger, but also comprise more people than our small populations,” he said.

According to him, road projects linking all East African countries were the surest way of breaking down colonial borders while through the EAC such ambitious projects will be fully realised.

Mr Museveni, who once studied and lived in Tanzania, praised the government for upgrading to bituminous standards practically all roads that were once rough and almost impassable.

“I have been taken by surprise to see that all roads to as far as Babati, Hanang and Singida to Sekenke escarpments have been paved,” Mr Museveni, promising to return and drive his Land Rover along those parts -- just to remind himself of the good old days, in Tanzania, quipped.

EAC Secretary General Dr Richard Sezibera explained that the Sakina-Tengeru Highway together with its related by-pass ring road is part of the Multinational Arusha to Holili on to Taveta and Voi Road, being built at the cost of 800 billion/-.

The project funded by the African Development Bank, is a successor to the already implemented Arusha to Namanga and onto Athi-River road that was completed in 2012.

It forms part of the larger East African Road Network consisting of 15,000 kilometres of international highways, and part of the Trans African Highways (TAH) Number 8, which links Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt, via Gaborone. Work on the Kenyan section of the project, from Taveta to Mwatate, commenced in May, 2014 and was launched in September2015 by former President Jakaya Kikwete and Mr Kenyatta at Taveta in Taita Taveta County.

The scope of the construction consists of upgrading from gravel to bitumen surface of 90km of the road, part of which traverses the Tsavo West National Park.

The finished road will have a 7-metre wide carriageway and 2-metre wide shoulders on both sides. There will also be a 9-km long bypass around Taveta Town to reduce congestion and enhance road safety in the town.

It is expected that travel time will be reduced from 4 hours to 1.5 hours along this stretch. The scope on the Tanzanian section, which commenced in June, 2015, includes the upgrading of the current two-way, 13-m wide road to a four-lane, 26-m wide highway from Sakina to Tengeru, a distance of 14 kms.

Service roads will be provided on both sides to facilitate the movement of local traffic. New bridges will be constructed alongside the existing ones on the new road.

It is scheduled for completion by March 2018. The Arusha by-pass consists of a 42.4-kilometre-long bitumen road that commences at Ngaramtoni, crosses the Dodoma Road at Kisongo and ends at Usa River Township.

The road is expected to relieve the busy Moshi-Arusha Road and will facilitate the traffic from Mombasa Port in Kenya wishing to join the Central Corridor at Singida.

It will also spur growth of the greater Arusha City, thereby helping to decongest the Central Business District. The project on the Kenyan side is estimated to cost 85 million US dollars while the Tanzanian section (dual carriageway and by-pass) will cost approximately 353 million US dollars.

Credit: The Daily News