AfricaPress-Tanzania: SPORTS and Arts sector heads for remarkable growth in the next five years as its chief motivator, President John Magufuli is back in the bandwagon to fulfill it.
President Magufuli who is sworn-in in Dodoma today to serve his nation for another five years, promised sports and Arts practitioners and stakeholders to complete all remaining sports and arts projects as he stated in the Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s 2020/25 Manifesto.
Already over 100 Bongo Flavor artistes are in Dodoma to brighten his swearing-in ceremony.
JPM, besides his immense contribution to sports development, he has been a big boost to the artistes most notably musicians and others who engage in performing arts.
JPM’s reign in the past five years has seen a steady growth in sports and entertainment sectors, and the arts-loving Head of the state, had most often promised more vitality in the 2020/25 term.
The President who made that remarks in his speech to dissolve the Parliament in Dodoma on June 11th this year, said the two sectors contributed immensely in the growth of the country’s economy.
Magufuli said, despite not being mentioned in various occasions when it comes to its contributions to the country’s economic growth, arts and culture grew by 13.7 per cent in 2018, according to the state of economy report.
It was the leading sector in terms of growth percentage wise. He said in 2019, the sector grew by 11.2 per cent according to the report and it was the third in the highest growth rate.
“We should brace for more growth in sports and entertainment sectors in the coming five years because the two, provide employment opportunities among our youths,” said Magufuli.
During President Magufuli’s five years reign, Tanzania has made great strides in sports sector especially in football, where youths programme development is slowly beginning to pay off.
And, the reality that the youth programmes have begun to pay the dividends is, at the moment made crystal clear with Under-17 team, Serengeti Boys qualification into the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Gabon.
The team went ahead to qualify for other finals hosted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania last year, albeit on hosts ticket and this signifies a good trend towards the development of the game of football in the country.
In fact, having the boys going places in the U-17 continental tournament is increasingly becoming a normal good practice, but it goes to better when girls’ category is given impetus to match the boys.
This was proven by the girls’ recent performance at the Council for East and Central African Football Association (CECAFA) Under-17 tournament in Uganda.
Tanzania finished second on 11 points behind Uganda, who won the inaugural edition of the CECAFA Under-17 Girls tournament in Jinja late last year after collecting 12 points.
The country has made a notable progress in the women and girls’ football as proved by Kilimanjaro Queens, the Mainland football team, which won back to back CECAFA Women Championship before being dethroned by Kenya late last year.
During President Magufulis’ five year reign, national team, Taifa Stars qualified into the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), finals staged last year in Cairo, Egypt, for the first time after almost 30 years.
Simba also had a successful campaign in 2018/2019 CAF Champions League, in which they reached the quarterfinals, for the first time since 2003, before being bundled out by Congolese side TP Mazembe.
