THE KILOMBERO KILLINGS

The Tanzanian Government has taken several measures as a result of the recommendations of the Presidential Commission investigating the killing of four sugar cane workers last year at Kilombero. Details of the incident were given in Bulletin No 26.

The Ministry of Agriculture has completely restructured the management, created a new post of Deputy General Manager and transferred a number of senior officials of the Kilombero Sugar Company.

The Morogoro Regional Crimes Officer has been sacked for his mishandling of the incident, the Morogoro Regional Commissioner has been moved to Kigoma and the Regional Police Commander has been recalled to Police Headquarters in Dar es Salaam. The Ministry of Agriculture has also directed the Holding Company, the Sugar Development Corporation (SUDECO) to extend a Shs 10 million loan to the sugar company to finance improved housing for sugar cane cutters.

President Mwinyi has also asked the Party to examine weaknesses in the Sugar Company’s CCM and JUWATA (Trade Union) branches.

Prime Minister Warioba told the National Assembly during its January session in Dodoma that the Government had received and endorsed the Kilombero probe report. He said that the leader of the police team had taken cover in the vehicle he was in as strikers threw stones at them. This left the rest of the group disorganised and they started firing randomly in the air without proper instructions from their leader.

The probe team, under the chairmanship of Judge Chipeta had said that the CCM and JUWATA branches at the factory knew nothing about the worker’s complaints. JUWATA from national to branch levels had not understood and scrutinised the workers complaints. The probe team had also recommended that the Kilombero administration should observe Presidential Directive No 1 of 1970 regarding workers education and participation.

Prime Minister Joseph Warioba said that the police had committed a big mistake and that the incident had embarrassed the Government.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.