President orders strict implementation of Statistics law

Dar es Salaam. President John Magufuli on Monday, October 23, directed the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and Justice to start strict implementation of the Statistics Act, 2015 so as to deter people from giving misleading statistics.

He said there were some data published by media and other people which were grossly misleading and if they not checked, the trend will tarnish the image of the country.

President Magufuli gave the directive after awarding certificates to members of two committees that formed to investigate the operation and business of the mining activities after he banned the export of mineral sands in March.

One of the committee was led by Prof Abdulkarim Mruma and the other was led by Nehemia Osoro.

“I want Tanzanians to ignore those who tried to change the data. I want Professor (Palamagamba) Kabudi (Minister for Constitution Affairs and Justice) to start dealing with them. You find someone reporting the revenue has dropped while he knows it’s not true,” he said.

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He noted that in the Statistic Act 2015 there is a section saying if person changes the government’s data should be jailed for three years jail.

“Why don’t we implement this law?” he asked adding:

“If the revenue has dropped how come the government signed the deal of constructing Standard Gauge Railway from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro at a cost of Sh7 trillion and the contractor is on site?”

He further wondered if the revenue has indeed dropped where the money from development comes from? He said the government has bought six aircraft at once and it announced a tender for Stigler Gorge hydropower project and already 79 companies have submitted their tender proposal.

“I can give a lot of examples… if we don’t have the money how we could accomplish all these projects?” he queried further.