Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday put to rest the debate on a new constitution, saying her priority is to stabilize the country’s economy.
“Let’s give ourselves more time, as we continue building up our economy. I don’t say that (the call for) constitution is less important but we still have a lot of things to do as we strive to strengthen our economy,” President Samia stated during her meeting with editors at the State House in Dar es Salaam.
“We want to continue bringing in more investors and creating more jobs,” she stressed, noting the nation must prioritize economic recovery amid uncertainties brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president was responding to a question from the media over her position regarding the shelved new constitution writing process, which kicked off during the fourth-phase government under former President Jakaya Kikwete.
The proposed new constitution was to replace the current 1977 document. President Samia explained that currently her focus is to unlocky the country’s economic potential to raise individual and national income for improving the livelihood.
“I can assure you that during the past three months the results have been immense, for instance, in terms of attracting more investors the number of investments registered from March to June, this year has almost doubled compared to the corresponding period last year,” the Head of State said.
Available statistics show that the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) has registered 93 big investment projects worth 1.6 billion US dollars (about 3.6tri/- ) between March and June, this year.
This represents a 36.7 per cent rise in investment projects compared to the corresponding period last year, when a total of 68 projects, worth 321 million US dollars (738bn/-) were registered.
The newly-registered investments are expected to create 17,670 employment to Tanzanians as compared to 5000 jobs created during the same period last year. Apart from political will, the sixth-phase government has been walking the talk by ensuring that results occur positively.
The government targets to create a total of 8 million jobs by 2025 as stipulated in the ruling CCM 2020/2025 manifesto. Since President Samia assumed power over three months ago, her emphasis has been on creating a friendly environment for investment and trade with the aim of creating more jobs to improve the lives of Tanzanians.
She further argued that current efforts are also intended to make the country self-reliant, to be able to finance its development projects.
In line with this, she also clarified on the issue of restriction on political rallies, insisting that the country needed to focus on raising her economy rather than wasting time on political rallies.
