Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories in Tanzania which were reported on Wednesday, June 17, 2021.
WHO: COVID-19 vaccines will arrive in Tanzania within two weeks
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday that Tanzania has requested to join the COVAX global vaccine-sharing facility, sending yet another message that the Samia Suluhu administration does not plan to continue with the late president John Magufuli’s stance on addressing the global coronavirus pandemic.
“We have received information that Tanzania is now formally working to join the COVAX facility,” the WHO’s regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti told a news conference on Thursday. Reuters quoted a WHO official who said that vaccines could arrive in Tanzania within two weeks.
The move by the government comes hardly a month since a presidential committee on COVID-19 advised the government to disclose COVID-19 cases as well as considering the COVAX facility, among many other recommendations.
Tanzania deports 38 ‘illegal’ immigrants
Tanzania yesterday arrested and deported 38 immigrants from various countries including 19 individuals from neighbouring Kenya who were accused of entering the country illegally. Head of the Immigration Department in the Kilimanjaro region Edward Mwenda told Mwananchi Digital that the “illegal” immigrants were arrested during a special operation launched on June 1, 2021.
Samia sends condolence to Zambians over demise of their founding father
President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday sent her condolence message to Zambians following the death of their founding father, President Keneth Kaunda who died on Thursday aged 97. Kaunda, who ruled Zambia from 1964 to 1991, died at a military hospital in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, where he was being treated for pneumonia.
In her condolence message, President Samia said that “Africa has lost a liberation fighter,” describing President Kaunda as “[a] patriot and true Pan-Africanist.” In a Twitter post, the Head of State wrote: “My condolences to President [Edgar Lungu], the bereaved family and all Zambians. May his soul rest in peace! Amen.”
Tanzania’s ‘Ivory Queen’ to remain in jail pending an appeal request
Yang Fenglan, one of the world’s most infamous ivory traffickers, is expected to remain in prison after an appeal judge sent her case back to a lower court. Mongabay, a U.S.-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform said yesterday that the High Court of Tanzania accepted that there were anomalies in the original written judgment against Fenglan, but declined her attorney’s application for release.
Fenglan, a Chinese businesswoman and long-term resident of Tanzania known as the “Ivory Queen”, was arrested in September 2015. Yang was convicted in February 2019 of leading an organised crime syndicate trafficking 860 elephant tusks, worth more than $6 million.
She and two Tanzanian accomplices were sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
Anti-drugs watchdog seizes 88kg of drugs in Dar
The Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) said yesterday that it seized 88.27 kilograms of heroin and methamphetamine in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital.
“The drugs were hidden in a car and we are holding the driver,” Mr Gerald Kusaya, DCEA commissioner said in a press conference. Mr Kusaya said the heroin weighed 12.25 kilograms and the methamphetamine weighed 76.02 kilograms.
Mr Kusaya warned people against involvement in drug trafficking, saying the DCEA is monitoring around the clock.
Who does Tanzania owe its national debt to?
And, finally, we thought you’d like our analysis of the Tanzania external debts. In that case, you can find the list of countries that Tanzania owes here; here is the list of international institutions; and here is the list of international financial institutions, total external debt by June 2021 stood at 43.7 trillion.
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