Africa-Press – Tanzania. MINISTER for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Nape Nnauye has said that setting up of residential addresses and postcode system has reached 67 per cent and will be completed before the deadline projected May this year.
He made the remarks here on Thursday at the opening of a meeting between his ministry, regional administration and local government as well as regional commissioners from 26 regions in Mainland to assess the execution progress of the exercise.
“Although we are on the right track, we have to speed up and finalise the task before the May deadline set by President Samia Suluhu Hassan,” said Mr Nape.
He commended Regional Commissioners and Regional Administrative Secretary for working closely with other officials to ensure that the work is accomplished.
The Minister was optimistic that key tasks like public awareness, identification, data collection and analysis, compilation and feeding information in the system and setting up of the residential addresses and postcodes will be met as planned.
Mr Nape said they will soon launch a countrywide massive awareness campaign to engage the public in the process so that the exercise will be implemented with ease and goals set realised.
On his part, Regional Administration and Local government Minister, Mr Innocent Bashungwa told the RCs that the same pace, standard and speed applied in the construction of 15,000 classrooms countrywide through President Samia’s IMF relief facility, should also be applied in setting up the residential addresses and postcode system.
Speaking on behalf of other RCs, Mr John Mongela, Arusha Regional Commissioner said they will do their best to have everything in place and in time as the government has availed them with all the needed resources.
Early February this year, President Samia Suluhu Hassan issued key directives to Regional Commissioners and other top leaders of the public institutions in the implementation of the 28bn/- National Residential Addresses and Postcode System.
The president termed the ambitious project as a special operation, just as it was during the construction of 15,000 classrooms countrywide in the 1.3tri/- scheme after they received a concessional loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The president said the 28bn/- would be distributed to all regional commissioners from both sides of the union depending on the population of each region.
“This money is not something that should be treated as an OC (Other Charges), but I want the money to go directly to the implementation of the project,” she said, directing that the budget was reduced from the initial 720bn/- to 28bn/- because in the project, all districts, towns, municipal and city councils were duty bound to contribute for the costs that would be viewed as important during the implementation.
Equally, President Samia directed the RCs to make sure that come May this year, all regions must have completed the exercise in order to pave the way for the Population and Housing Census.
“I will not tolerate any RC who will fail to beat the May deadline, and I want to be categorical that those who will prove failure will have to seat with me and offer tangible explanation(s) as to why they should stay in their offices,” she said, insisting that those who would face challenges in the course of implementing the exercise should provide prior information to her office, so that immediate solutions are sought.
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