No food for lazy people, JPM warns

Sengerema/Dar/Morogoro. President John Magufuli has instructed regional and district commissioners to ensure their respective areas produced enough food, warning that the government would not assist people who face shortages due to laziness.

Addressing a rally at Mnadani grounds in Sengerema District, Mwanza Region, yesterday, Dr Magufuli said feeding a household was the responsibility of its head, therefore, each family must cultivate and store food needed throughout the year.

“Government obligation is to provide such services as roads and supplying medicine, not relief food for lazy people,” he insisted at the well-attended rally.

His statement signals a shift from past policy stances, which saw the government providing relief food to people faced with shortages. He encouraged district commissioners to issue early alerts.

Reacting to the matter, experts expressed their support to President Magufuli’s directive to make sure Tanzania become food sufficient but warned that more time was needed before the government stopped offering assistance. 

It was argued that there were issues that were beyond farmers’ capacity to ensure food self-sufficiency.

Prof Damian Gagambi, an agroeconomist from the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), said the directive was timely. 

“Technically, the President’s directives are policies, and now all his aides from the ministerial level in the central government to the district authorities have to come up with ways of implementing them. 

“It is possible to make hunger history, countries like China and others in Europe were also having the same problems, but they decided and end it,” he said.

“Always, there are factors behind famine. If it is drought then we have to see how we can reduce our rain dependency in our farming and invest more in irrigation. If it is a case of bad marketing policies and bad road networks to link say maize rich areas of Songea and dry areas of Manyara, then we need to fix the systems.”

The don said there were policies in the past which were not implemented, but he was certain that now things would be different. 

“I participated in formulating the Big Results Now. It is a very good policy work, but it hasn’t been fully implemented.”

Mr Onesmo Olengurumwa, the national coordinator of Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC), said the President’s goodwill should be appreciated and that he was also happy that the Head of State was annoyed to see people dying of hunger.  

However, he said, it was the President’s modus operandi that he was not happy with.

“Well, you appoint an RC or DC today and warn him that he will be fired if hunger is reported in his area. These people have little over a month now in their areas, and have found farmers about to harvest their crops, which means they have little to do to effectuate improvements in yields,” he said adding “the best way would have been for Dr Magufuli to give the commissioners a time span, say two years, and instruct them to have in place plans that would eradicate famine, and if they fail, then they can be fired.”

According to him, with the situation remaining as it is now, the commissioners would be under pressure to deliver and some might be tempted to report hunger cases in their areas to avoid being axed.

In another development the government has now started issuing permits to business people intending to export rice. It has also slapped ban on the tendency by some businesspersons of lending one another such permits.

This was said yesterday in Morogoro by Mr Araduis Kategano, the acting director of the Food Security Department at the ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries during a symposium on the evaluation of paddy’s value chain.

Mr Kategano said the issuance of the permits was temporarily banned to pave the way for food evaluations in the country and that after those evaluations it was ascertained that the country still had sufficient food, hence the permit.

 Apart from the issuance of the permits, he added that the government had laid down a procedure of how these could be obtained, the sale of rice and other cereals to avoid food scarcity that might occur as a result of arbitrary sales of cereal.

However, some stakeholders of the paddy crop complained about colossal duties imposed on them by their councils when ferrying paddy or rice from the fields to markets.

“Paddy farming is costly as from planting to harvests, farmers will be using inputs. So, we ask the government to waive duties on rice,” businessperson Dina Kikuli said.

For his part, Vision Tanzania director Obed Mahenda said the evaluation carried out by his organisation revealed that most of rice farmers, particularly women, had been selling the commodity at a loss because the businesspersons were using improper   measuring mechanisms including buckets.

Mr Mahenda also said that the farmers had been cultivating the crop by banking on local markets owing to poor production and use of seeds of poor quality.

He requested the government to increasingly provide education on extension services and improve cooperatives across the country including establishing farming procedures and regulations for improved efficiency in rice marketing. The organization has been working to empower small-scale rice farmers for easy access to markets.

Meanwhile, on his tour yesterday President Magufuli said the government has already set aside Sh1 trillion for construction of the standard gauge railway tracks from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza.

“The government also has plans to buy a new ship with the capacity of ferrying 1,000 passengers and 800 tonnes of cargo at one go.

He urged Tanzanians to keep peace and stability warning that his government would not tolerate anyone conspiring to cause chaos.

He promised to promote the fight against corruption and embezzlement through his style of tumbling boils, thanking Parliament for passing the Act he said would bolster the fight.

“We have also set aside a budget of Sh2 billion to establish a special court to deal with corruption cases,” said Mr President.

About illegal fishing in Lake Victoria, he said the government designed strategies to deal with the issue which according to him has affected more than 6 million jobs. 

Today, President Magufuli is scheduled to inspect development projects including pedestrians’ flyover construction at Furahisha and the expansion to four ways from the current two the Ghana-Pasiansi road.

Earlier, Sengerema and Buchosa constituency lawmaker Charles Tizeba and Mr William Ngeleja used the visit to remind President Magufuli his election promises.

It was Mr Tizeba, who doubles as the minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, who started to remind the President his promise to build a tarmac road linking Buchosa and Sengerema District headquarters.

Mr Ngeleja also used the platform to ask the Head of State to solve water problems.

President Magufuli promised to implement all the promises he made during the election campaigns saying he has already implemented free primary education from pre-primary to Form Four levels.

He urged Sengerema residents implementing to stay calm when the government was implementing a massive water project that will cost over Sh20 billion.