Author: Giza Mdoe

While its Standard Gauge Railway project is commencing at the speed of light to give Tanzania its first electric powered train, the country is also making efforts to revive its once closed internal railway line for locomotives.

Last year, Tanzanians joy rode the reopened passenger and cargo train from the commercial port city of Dar es Salaam to Moshi, home of Africa’s highest mountain, the Kilimanjaro.

New locomotives were bought and engines imported, the train quickly became a national hit and immediately eased the pressure that was on road transport. Government officials led the excited public in trying out the train that has first, second and third class levels offering all te amenities that a traveler would need.

The revival of freight operations on the 438 km rail stretch was marked by a ceremony that was attended by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa at the destination of the train in Moshi.…

Ethiopia wants to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), the historically technocrat country now wants to open its doors and become a market economy.

This means privatizing its industries, a move that the country was previously reluctant to take. However, over the last eight years, Ethiopia has been making major economic reforms and the world has begun to notice.

Under the new liberalization policy, Ethiopia will now privatize some key sectors like its telecom industry and its national pride, the airlines led by Air Ethiopia as well as its banking and logistics sectors.

The world has taken notice and to urge and nudge the country on, the international community has allowed it to resume negotiations with the WTO.

A bid 8 yrs in making

Ethiopia started to make moves towards joining the WTO some 8 years ago when it first filed its application and a Working Party was formed in …

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi will later this month take over the Chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The 40th Heads of State summit will be held virtually as Mozambique takes helm of the regional organization to speak on peace, security and regional co-operation.

Up to this year, the Chairman of the 16-member regional bloc was under the leadership of Tanzania’s fifth President, Dr. John Magufuli.

President Magufuli, the seating chairperson, assumed the leadership of the trade bloc last year in August. Arguably, President Magufuli had to deal with one of the worst crisis that the SADC trade bloc has ever had to face, Covid-19.

As it did for the European Union and other World trade areas, the Covid-19 global pandemic rendered business asunder across all 16 member states. Most all SADC member states were forced to close their borders effectively disrupting business flow across Africa’s largest trade bloc.…

After much back and forth that caused enormous delay, the East African Community (EAC) has passed a 97.6m US dollars budget for the next financial year.

Of the total amount, 55.6m US dollars will come from EAC partner states, while development partners will contribute 41.9m US dollars.

The budget reflects the region’s top priority areas which can be shortlisted to about seven areas. During the next financial year, the community will focus on Consolidation of the Single Customs Territory (SCT) to cover all imports and intra-EAC traded goods, including agricultural and other widely consumed products.

It will also cover infrastructure development including the enhancement of free movement of all factors of production as declared under the Common Market and Monetary Union Protocols.

Another focus area is the enhancement of regional industrial development through investment in key priority sectors like skills development, technological advancement and innovation to stimulate economic development.…

Mauritius is the latest example. Just this Saturday, a grounded oil tanker, MV Wakashio, started spewing tonnes of oil into the Indian Ocean and as the norm on the continent, the country is ill prepared to respond.

Africa needs to do a much better job in disaster preparedness. The continent cannot and must not continue to operate on status quo basis, as though no emergency is bound to occur at some point.

The natives of Mauritius are left to device makeshift emergency responses in this case using ‘stuffed fabric sacks with sugar cane leaves to create makeshift oil spill barriers as tonnes of fuel leaking from a grounded ship put endangered wildlife in further peril…’ wrote Al Jazeera.

So, humans on the ground can take some sort of action but what of the marine life?  Most of which mark you, is endangered coral reef species.

Greenpeace says the fuel and …

The Mastercard Foundation’ Komeza program is gaining momentum and Rwanda, the fastest growing economy in East Africa, is not about to be left behind.

Equity Bank of Rwanda as announced that it will be partnering with Rwanda’s Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESP) under the Komeza program to stimulate recovery from the negative effects of Covid-19.

Komeza is the brainchild of Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESP) which has won support of Mastercard’s ongoing USD2.5 million MasterCard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program. The Mastercard program is designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) specifically in the Tourism and Hospitality sector. (https://spoonerberries.com)

Under the program, with Equity Bank Rwanda PLC as the financing partner, ESP will provide both financial support and technical assistance to 120 SMEs that operate within the Tourism and Hospitality sector.

Over the next year, the Komeza program will provide technical assistance and financing of up to USD50000 …

Tanzania is no novice to sisal production, if anything, it is one of the world’s oldest sisal producing countries. Dating back to the late 19th century when the region was then known as the German East Africa Company, sisal was produced by the colonialists, at which time it was the German administration and later the British.

Reports state that sisal production was the colony’s largest export so much that at the time of independence in 1961, Tanzania was the largest exporter of Sisal in the world.

Now, almost 6 decades down the road, Tanzania is working on regaining the status. For one, a quick visit around the sprawling sisal farms that run for miles and miles with their pointed spikes reaching for the skies, one can tell, little to no upkeep is been done to these plantations.

So the government, in June, warned that it will revoke all undeveloped …

The Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has won a USD 1.3 million (3bn/-) case against Vodacom Tanzania dating back almost two decades ago. Tanzania’s Court of Appeal delivered a ruling last week in which it rejected Vodacom’s appeal of TRA’s tax audit dating back to a three year period between 2001-2004.

Local media reported at the start of the week that, “…TRA, the respondent, conducted tax audit in respect of the appellant’s business affairs for the period covering the year 2001 to 2004.”

The findings of this audit were that Vodacom Tanzania was withholding tax and penalties related to services and royalty for use of software acquired from Siemens Telecommunications (PTY) Ltd.

“On November 10, 2006 the respondent served the appellant with preliminary audit findings…” in turn, on April 24, 2007, Vodacom Tanzania issued its own revised audit findings which TRA did not accept as correct.

The following year, on August …

While most other East African countries are expected to fall into a recession for the remainder of the year, Tanzania’s economy is actually expected to grow.

The unexpected projection was given recently by the African Development Bank (AfDB) which stated that Tanzania’s economy may expand by as much as 5.2 percent this year.

This report contradicts that of the World Bank which recently forecast that the country’s economy would suffer a slowdown and slump down to 2.5 percent from last year’s high of 6.4 percent.

“Despite the projected slowdown, real GDP growth in Tanzania will benefit from increased prices of gold, a major national export,” reads the report in part.

The phenomena makes sense since gold prices are still climbing thanks to investors opting to use the precious metal as a store of value against the now volatile dollar. The dollar has been taking a pounding from the effects of …