Chair, Vice chair of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industries, Trade and Environment resign

Dodoma. The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Industry, Trade and Environment, Dr Dalali Kafumu and Ms Vick Kamata say they have resigned from their positions.

They told reporters this morning here that interference from the government and lack of understanding of the industrialisation policy by some government officials and MPs as some of the reasons for the resignation.

“We made this decision after careful consideration and because we wish this country well. We do not want to be seen as being part of the failure by the country to realise its industrialisation dream,” Dr Kafumu said.

The committee has had their fair share of some run-ins with officials of the ministry of Industries, Trade and Marketing over what they saw as lack of a clear commitment to finance the industrialisaiton programme. Last October the committee declined to accept the ministry's report on the progress of industrialisation for 2016/17 financial year after it emerged that the Treasury had not disbursed even a single cent to the ministry's development budget. The committee said the report was shallow and sent the minister for Industries Charles Mwijage back to the drawing board. But it seems that confrontation with the minister did not go down well with some elements in the government who started threatening some key members of the committee.