Browsing: President Magufuli

Five years ahead of schedule Tanzania achieved middle income status. To be exact, the World Bank changed it’s classification from ‘a low-income to a lower-middle-income country.’

East Africa’s sleeping giant is finally awakening. Right in the middle of the global Coronavirus pandemic, Tanzania has provided a rare piece of good news — on 1 July 2020, the country achieved its middle-income vision five years ahead of schedule. – The Africa Report

The World Bank’s news was announced to the country by it’s President John Magufuli bringing even more recognition to the achievements of Tanzania’s fifth administration.

In his twitter handle, the president posted the new country status emphasizing the achievement was accomplished five years ahead of time.

“Today, July 1, 2020, the World Bank announced that Tanzania has become a middle-income country. I congratulate my Tanzanian colleagues for this achievement. This is a big feat that we have accomplished and …

In Africa’s metropolises, you don’t have to be rich to wear Gucci Armani or Prada, no sir, it is common place to see women in the slums carrying Dolce Gabbana handbags.

In fact there is a prominent saying across most all of Africa’s urban centres like Dar es Salaam and Nairobi “…everyone looks good in mtumba.”

Mtumba, is Swahili slang for second hand clothes, and Africa is one of the world’s leading importers of second hands, from caps, t-shirts and shirts, to pants and shorts all the way to bras and women underwear, yes second hand bras and underway are big business.

‘East Africa imported $151 million worth of used clothes and shoes in 2015, mostly from Europe and the U.S.’ And ‘At least 70 percent of donated garments end up in Africa’ – Oxfam.

What is strange here is that, Africa does not want to import these used items …

Tanzania became the first East African nation to reopen its schools, businesses and ports of entry, charting a new path in the management of the Corona Virus.

As of May 18, Tanzania reopened its airspace for international arrivals and the World is responding.

Only three days after it announced its reopening its airspace, local media reported that a chartered airplane landed at the Kilimanjaro International Airport on May 21. The plane had on board four Greek nationals.

Previously, the tourists would have had to go into a 14-day mandatory quarantine but not anymore. Now anyone entering the country only needs to go through a simple temperature check upon arrival. Other measures include having all arriving flights present an Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) so as to allow the Tanzania’s Immigration Department and Airport Authorities to identify high-risk passengers.

All non-APIS compliant flights will now be required to notify their passengers …

There has not been a more demanding time for Africa to adopt modern agriculture methods than now. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, food security in Africa is threatened at all levels and farming activities have nearly been brought to a standstill.

African farmers lost market as borders closed and flights were grounded to curb the spread of Covid-19. As a result the, pandemic severely affected the agriculture value chains from supply of inputs to transporting the end product.

Africa now finds itself more in need of modern farming methods to increase production in a cost effective manner. However, while attempting to increase production, African farmers must also mitigate the effects of climate change by adopting climate smart agriculture.

There is need to use improved seed varieties even in the backdrop of the side effects of using hybrid seeds. Improved seed varieties are more resistant to disease and poor …

After slow production during the Covid-19 lock down,  Zimbabwe’s gold sector has had a drastic come back reporting gold revenue is up almost 50 percent at least one of its major mines.

The total revenue recorded for the second quarter of 2020 clocked and impressive to USD23. 6 million, that is almost double (48 percent) the revenue brought in during the same period last year.

Having topped last year’s production by USD15. 9 million, Blanket Gold Mine that is based in the Gwanda region, increased production all through the first quarter this despite glitches caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The mine is owned by the Caledonia Mining Corporation and was proud to announce it had produced 14,233 ounces of gold in the second quarter up from the 11,948 produced during the same period last year.

The production level is very impressive given the fact that other miners could not access …

Kenya is heavily in debt; granted it is not the only East African country to find itself neck deep in debt but it certainly is the only one trying to raise the debt ceiling, every subsequent administration.

Last year, President Kenyatta appointed a new economist to lead the country’s National Treasury and just like his predecessor, his first order of business was to seek constitutional amendment so that the country could borrow more.

As of October 2019, Kenya’s legislators had been swayed to raise the country’s debt ceiling to USD 84.5 billion (Sh9 trillion). All is good when the money is flowing in, but when the roosters come home to roost and the cash flow takes an outward projector, the weight of it all starts to sink in.

That is where Kenya has found itself—smack in the middle of paying a whopping USD8.5 billion (Sh904.7 billion) in debt servicing. Even …

Tanzania has joined the rest of the continent in lowering borrowing rates for commercial banks in a bid to maintain their liquidity.

Tanzania’s Central Bank the Bank of Tanzania, (BoT) has cut down interest on borrowing from 7 percent to 5 percent, a move that has been welcomed by the business community.

It has also chopped rates on government securities by half, starting with treasury bills which it brought down to 5 percent from 10 percent and treasury bonds to from 40 percent to 20 percent.

These latest series of monetary measure is backed with the lowering of the required minimum cash reserve that commercial banks are otherwise required to maintain at the Central Bank.

The goal is to stimulate the economy by giving commercial banks the leeway to lower their lending rates which in turn should see business access the operating capital they need. The BoT did not stop …

There is no sugar in Tanzania. The little that there is, is very hard to come by and when you do find it, its many times more expensive than you would have bought it last month. It is barely a fortnight since the government confidently said the country has enough sugar and went ahead and placed a cap on sugar prices.

To bring things under control, nationwide crackdowns were carried out and several warehouses were found with allegedly hoarded sugar, fines were issued and arrest made in shops and other outlets where the sellers were price above the government cap, even awhile consignment was seized been smuggled out of the country.

Yet still, two weeks later, there is no sugar. Been the Holy Month of Ramadhan, lack of sugar severely affects the day to day social well being. Most of the staples and beverages need sugar, the tea needs sugar …

Phase one of Tanzania’s Stand Gauge Railway (SGR) that extends from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro is almost complete.

The railway which covers over 300 kilometres is almost complete and the country is now getting ready to buy the trains that will run on the track.

Even though its first phase is not entirely complete due to the ongoing heavy rains that have stalled construction work, the country is ready to move on and buy and test the trains.

Unofficial reports say the government of Tanzania has started bidding for trains and is actually in the process of finalising procurement of at least two locomotives already. That’s not all, the required trains should have at least eight compartments for passengers and same number of wagons for cargo transportation.

Already the testing of trains has started, a senior official of the Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) intimated. It is expected that the …

The Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha), is reporting an increase in revenue from the export of avocados which until now were not considered key export cash crop.

However growing demand in the US and Europe has seen the sub-sector increase revenue to USD 23 million annually.

Tanzania is the second largest producer of avocado fruit in Africa second only to Kenya. Over the past 5 years, avocado exports have frog leaped from 1,877 tonnes in 2014 to 9,000 tonnes in 2019 and were it not for the COVID-19 outbreak, this figure was expected to go only higher.

Kenya is already doing much better with its estimated annual output is about 190,000 tonnes every year as the country exports an average of 10,000 metric tonnes annually.

In Tanzania, there are about 10000 farmers of the crop who are spread out across the country and of these, now most have turned to the …