AfricaPress-Tanzania: FROM the word GO after then-Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) presidential election candidate Dr John Pombe Magufuli had emerged victor and became the Head of State after the 2015 polls, he set in motion a series of various measures intended to revolutionise Tanzania.
For starters, Dr Magufuli had accumulated vast experience as a long-serving Cabinet minister, based on two major factors.
One, that, there was considerable rot in the management of various national affairs, due to the existence within government institutions, of individuals, acting singly or in groups of individuals driven by selfish and narrow group interests, who were an unpatriotic lot.
During the election campaigns ahead of the elections, Dr Magufuli had made earnest pledges to his compatriots, that if he were given the opportunity to become their leader, he would be instrumental in fixing the rot. And, as alluded to at the outset of this opinion piece, he surely did.
He embarked on a series of tough measures that Tanzanians hadn’t been accustomed to.
The measures were anchored on literally putting the disorderly house in order, and the evidence lies in the achievements that have been recorded over the nearly five years of his leadership so far.
Highlights of these were given in Parliament in Dodoma on Monday by the Prime Minister, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, in speech delivered ahead of the dissolution of the august house by President Magufuli yesterday.
The premier recalled that an exposure was made of nearly 20,000 ghost workers, and a scandal of some 16,000 fake certificates was unearthed.
This has injected discipline in the civil service, by psyching those entrusted to undertaking various tasks to do so earnestly, lest they face the music.
Discipline in the Executive, Parliament and Judiciary has improved remarkably. Due to sealing leakage loopholes, monthly revenue collection has risen from 800bn/- to 1.5trl/- per month.
Nearly 4,500 industries have been established and about 490,000 jobs created, youths being the leading beneficiaries. Huge, highly beneficial projects that have won universal acclaim, are ongoing.
They include the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Station which is at 40 per cent construction stage. Phase One of the Dar-es-Salaam-Morogoro Standard Gauge Railway project is scheduled for completion in June next year.
And nearly 10,000 villages have been covered under the Rural Energy Agency project.
Various other projects related to health and education are also on-going on a steady pace. In a nutshell, the fifth phase government is the equivalent of a bullet train on a fantastic speed.
