Dar es Salaam has always had problems in ensuring its water supply and the vast growth in the population of the city in recent years has exacerbated these problems. November last year was a particularly difficult month – most of the city was without water for days at a time.

Water carrier in DSM – Photo courtesy Birgit La Cour Madsen/ActionAid UK

The Government’s reaction to the recurring problems was to privatise the industry, but this process has now come under heavy fire even though it is less than year since it happened. Continue reading →

In summer 2003 I travelled out to Tanzania to train the staff of a secondary school on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in the use of computers. I had stayed there for a month in 1999 and had helped set up an IT lab with PCs donated by schools and small businesses in Cumbria. Although their intentions were good, the machines they donated were not. We did the best we could with seriously outdated machines but we knew at the time that they would probably not last long. We were, unfortunately, correct. Continue reading →

Tanzania has a new newspaper – ‘The Citizen’. In its third issue dated September 18 it had a feature on milk spread over its middle pages. Extracts: ‘Tanzania is rich in cattle (about 17 million) but milk production is only 3.3 million litres perday. The average Tanzanian drinks about 26 litres of milk a year (adults prefer beer) compared with 84 litres in Kenya. The article described the ‘pitiable internal market’ because of Tanzanians’ preference for imported milk rather than the local product. But several companies were now adopting innovative programmes to boost sales of local milk. Royal Dairy Products Ltd. had started delivering door to door in Dar es Salaam. Thank you Frederick Longino for sending us a copy of this new publication – Editor.

Bagamoyo Old Fort

In order to preserve some of the more than 500 ancient sites in the country, the Government has started a programme under which some would be leased to Tanzanian private operators who would be expected to preserve them for the future and bring them into sustainable use. According to a feature by Perege Gumbo in the Guardian (October 10): ‘Leasing began last September when the Bagamoyo Old Fort building was leased to Akana Lodges and Hotels of Dar es Salaam. The fort, one of the oldest stone houses in the country, was built by Abdallah Selemani Marhabi and fortified by Sultan Barghash who reigned from 1870 to 1888. Barghash had around 5,000 soldiers in the fort to protect Bagamoyo from the local Wazaramo who fought against the influence of the Omani-Sultan Barghash in 1875. Later the fort became the property of the famous Indian trader Sewa Haji, the great donator of wells, the still existing Mwambao School and the existing hospital, in Bagamoyo Town. Sewa Haji later rented the fort to the Germans as a garrison. It was later used as a police post up to 1992 after which it has been used as the local headquarters and training centre of the Department of Antiquities. Historians have, however, doubted the truthfulness of the belief that the fort was used as slave quarters during the slave trade. The lease will allow the Government to collect monthly concession fees from the new operator’.

Two British soldiers on vacation in Tanzania have been arrested and put on trial charged with the murder of a woman at the Silver Sands hotel in Bagamoyo – Mtanzania.

At least ten suspects who had robbed tourists in Bweju, South Zanzibar, have been arrested and one of them was killed after sustaining serious wounds in a shoot-out with the police. Continue reading →

The Zanzibar House of Representatives has passed unanimously a Bill that gives the Isles their own flag. The flag will not be hoisted however at the UN, African Union, East African Community, Commonwealth or other international forums where Zanzibar is not recognized as a sovereign state. Despite their support for the Bill, opposition MP’s maintained their dissatisfaction with the Union flag being superimposed on the Zanzibar flag. Colours of the new flag are black, dark blue, green, gold and light blue. Contempt for the flag carries a five-year jail term or a fine not exceeding TShs 700,000 or both – Guardian Continue reading →