30/06/2010 by hindu.

 A Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) pilot and his trainee died yesterday after their plane crash-landed on the Segera-Chalinze highway, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions with a bus and a truck carrying 23 foreign tourists.

Eyewitnesses said the plane crashed onto the road at around 10.10 am, and nearly collided with a truck carrying 19 tourists from Holland and four from Kenya, who were accompanied and a Tanzanian guide. The party was travelling from Lushoto in Tanga to Dar es Salaam to board a boat to Zanzibar, when the accident occurred nearly 250 kilometres north of the city.

The pilot of the ill-fated plane also managed to avoid a head-on collision with a bus christened Simba Mtoto, which was travelling from Tanga to Dodoma. Contacted by telephone in Dar es Salaam, the TPDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Abdurahman Shimbo, declined to name the victims until their next of kin are informed. Read the rest of this entry »

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30/06/2010 by hindu.

TANZANIA Labour Party (TLP) Union presidential aspirant, Mr Macmillani Lyimo, returned nomination forms on Tuesday, expressing his determination to lead the country to prosperity as its fifth president since independence.

“Ours is not a poor country. We are lagging behind because of poor leadership,” the 46-year-old aspirant told a news conference shortly after returning the forms to the TLP Secretary General, Major Jesse Makundi, at Magomeni Mikumi area in Dar es Salaam.

Mr Lyimo said that he was young but competent and equipped with satisfactory education and experience in pastoral work in the Assemblies of God Church. Read the rest of this entry »

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30/06/2010 by hindu.

 The ministry of Infrastructure Development yesterday asked for Sh1.1 trillion to implement a number of projects in the next one year. The minister, Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, said the money would be spent on the construction of roads, a new station for container services and a special yard for motor vehicles at Dar es Salaam Port, and the rehabilitation of railways.

Presenting his ministry’s budget for the 2010/11 financial year, Dr Kawambwa asked for Sh293,429,311,000 as recurrent expenditure and Sh871,553,916,000 for development projects. Some Sh500,673,835,000 is expected to come from donors, while Sh370,880,081,000, will be provided by the government.

Other projects include the construction of a cargo centre (CFS) at Kisarawe, a centre for oil treatment (SPM), a beach development project and the building of a one-stop centre at the Dar es Salaam Port. Some of the money would also be used to import equipment for ship repairs. Read the rest of this entry »

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30/06/2010 by hindu.

 Doubts on which countries among the five East African Community’s (EAC) member states are either going to loose or benefit form the single market arrangement still looms high in Tanzania.  

Who would benefit most from the deal, which among its core features includes a free movement of labour, capital, goods and services is still the major question among majority of Tanzanians, who had been pessimistic of the EAC Common Market even before the negotiations for the protocol started and the time frame for discussions had been set.

 As the EAC tried to play down such worries by maintaining that to reach to the common market stage was a process, and that it would not start instantly, many Tanzanians of all walks of life have been pondering on its impact.
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29/06/2010 by hindu.

Vice-President, Dr Ali Mohamed Shein (62), was among five Zanzibar presidential aspirants on the CCM ticket who returned their nomination forms on Monday.

Others who returned the forms were Mr Hamad Bakari Mshindo (61), Ambassador Ali Abeid Karume (60), Deputy East African Affairs Minister, Mr Mohamed Aboud Mohamed (50) and Chief Minister Mr Shamsi Vuai Nahodha (48). Former Chief Minister Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilali (65) returned his nomination forms on Saturday.

The CCM National Executive Committee (NEC) Special Committee for Zanzibar would meet on Saturday to scrutinise the aspirants and forward its recommendations to the party’s Central Committee that is scheduled to meet in Dodoma on July 6. The final decision would be made by NEC on July 9. Read the rest of this entry »

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29/06/2010 by hindu.

 A recently concluded geological assessment in Tanzania’s Southern offshore deep oil exploration project has shown prospective resource potentials of over a billion barrels of oil and gas.

An independent assessment of the first prospect of Dominion Petroleum Limited’s block 7 in Tanzania shows a resource of one billion barrels of oil, or seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

 According to Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), Block 7 which is in Kilwa District, Lindi Region looks promising. Information on the new discovery has also been published by the respected Wall Street Journal, quoting sources from within the exploration company. Read the rest of this entry »

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29/06/2010 by hindu.

The amount of money spent on  HIV/Aids control in the country rose by over 2,000 per cent in six years, from 2001 to 2007.

Speaking as the chief guest to mark the opening of a three-day seminar on HIV/Aids policy review here yesterday, the Mwanza regional commissioner, Mr Abbas Kandoro, said in 2001 the Tanzania Commission for Aids (Tacaids) was allocated a budget of Sh17 billion.

However, by 2007 the budget, which was heavily donor funded, had reached over Sh381 billion, he said. Encouragingly, during the same period the overall adult prevalence rate fell by about one per cent, from 6.7 to 5.7 per cent, he explained. Read the rest of this entry »

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29/06/2010 by hindu.

Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) has been advised to extend railway services to other Southern African countries in order to increase trade links and reduce dependency on goods from international markets.  

The advice was given in Dar es Salaam yesterday by the South African high commissioner to Tanzania, Mr Thandusiye Chiliza, who was among Southern African Development Community (Sadc) diplomats who visited the cash strapped Authority.  

He told Tazara management that absence of good and reliable infrastructures inAfrica was hindrance to inter-trade links, which is the most important aspect towards development.   Read the rest of this entry »

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28/06/2010 by hindu.

Delays in completing road projects have raised costs by Sh36 billion above the original estimates, an audit report shows. “This money could be saved if road works were managed more efficiently and could be used to further invest in the road network,” says the value for money performance audit report on road works by the National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT).

Seen by The Citizen ahead of the tabling of budget proposals for the ministry of Infrastructure Development in the National Assembly in Dodoma tomorrow, the document says out of 10 road works that were audited by NAOT, none was completed on time, resulting in a combined final cost of 57 per cent higher than the original budget.

In most cases the extension was for more than six months, revealed the report, indicating that the total original budget for10 road projects was Sh153.7 billion, but delays in construction pushed the cost to a whopping Sh241.3billion. Read the rest of this entry »

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28/06/2010 by hindu.

The government is scrutinising class C driving license holders’ competence to reduce the increasing number of accidents in the country, Parliament was told at the weekend. 

Home Affairs minister Lawrence Masha said his ministry was analysing the licenses in collaboration with the ministry of Infrastructure Development and the  Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).  

Recent trends indicated that most of the accidents involving passenger vehicles resulted from reckless driving by incompetent drivers, prompting the government to assess the competence of the class C license holders entitled to drive those vehilces.   Read the rest of this entry »

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