Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on Monday, May 30, 2022.
Fire guts yet another market in Dar
Another market burnt down on Monday in Dar es Salaam after a fire gutted the Temeke Veterinary market located along Mandela Highway, destroying an estimated number of 453 stalls in the market.
It is the third fire outbreak that engulfed market areas in Dar es Salaam this year alone. Other previous fires took place at the Karume market in Ilala as well as the one that engulfed the Mbagala market in Temeke.
A number of committees have been formed to investigate previous fire incidences but their findings remain in the hands of government officials only. Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Amos Makalla said government leaders were tired of hearing about fires burning down markets.
“We are tired of hearing about the fires and just three weeks ago we conducted a fire safety seminar which engaged the security committees, the market leaders of all Dar es Salaam markets and the police force,” Mr Makalla said during his visit to the market. “How comes we are hearing another incident today?”
According to him, preliminary investigation showed that the Temeke Veterinary Market fire outbreak was caused by an electric fault. But he sounded unsure about it, stating that another factor that may have caused the fire was traders leaving the stoves on at night, especially those who were boiled beans at night.
Tanzania arrests eight traders for smuggling gold
Minister for Minerals Doto Biteko said Sunday that eight traders have been arrested in Geita in connection with smuggling out of the country an unspecified amount of gold.
Biteko announced the arrest of the eight traders in a meeting with small-scale miners at the Lwamgasa area in the gold-rich Geita region.
He said the government launched a clampdown on unfaithful gold traders after sales started going down in minerals trading centres.
“The eight traders have been detained helping police in their investigations,” Xinhua quoted Mr Biteko as saying. He however declined to mention the amount of gold found in possession of the traders for investigative reasons.
Biteko urged traders to stop buying gold in the streets and instead buy the precious stones in state-run mineral trading centres.
In 2019, Tanzania set up government-controlled minerals trading centers in efforts aimed at curbing illegal exports of gold and other precious minerals.
The trading centres give small-scale miners direct access to a formal, regulated market where they can go and directly trade their gold.
Tanzania to receive technical boost from Estonia on ICTs
The government of Tanzania announced recently that it has retained the service of an Estonian organisation in its efforts to transform the East African nation into a complete information society.
The Minister of Information, Communication and Information Technology Nape Nnauye told the parliament on May 20, 2022, that the Information and Communication Technologies Commission (ICTC) will collaborate with the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITL) to undertake an ICT landscape assessment in the country.
ICTC is a government body mandated to promote and foster investment and development of the ICT industry in Tanzania while ITL is an umbrella body of technology and telecommunications companies and organisations in Estonia.
“In research, ICT Commission, in collaboration with the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITL), has agreed to conduct ICT landscape assessment in the country,” reads part of the budget statement by Mr Nnauye.
The Mtama MP (Chama cha Mapinduzi – CCM) made the revelation during his ministry’s budget presentation in parliament on May 20, 2022.
The activity is part of the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICTC and ITL, according to the budget presentation. The assessment is expected to be undertaken in June 2022.
In August 2020, the Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITL) signed an MoU with the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO), an organisation tasked with the mandate to promote science and technologies across all East African Community member states.
Tanzania has been pushing for the achievement of various strides in its Digital Tanzania ambition, which look to increase usage, access, and delivery of services through digital means.
With the $150 million funding from the World Bank, the Digital Tanzania Project seeks to increase access to high-quality broadband internet services for government, businesses and citizens, and to improve the government’s capacity to deliver digital public services.
The project’s implementation has been in the offing with many activities expected to be implemented in the budget year 2022/2023 which will commence in July 2022.
The Northern European nation of Estonia is considered to be one of the leading nations when it comes to e-governance in the world.
In the 2020 United Nations E-Government Survey, Estonia was ranked third in the e-governance index. Tanzania, on its hand, stood at 152 out of the 193 UN Member States.
This means that there is more that Tanzania can learn from Estonia when it comes to ICTs and e-governance in general.
This is it for today and we hope you enjoyed our briefing. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter (see below) or following us on Twitter (here) as that is the best way to make sure you do not miss any of these briefings. And in case you have any questions or comments, please consider dropping a word to our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
