Tanzania Government to issue new circular on President Magufuli IDs to traders

Dodoma. The government is expected to issue a circular on July 1, 2019, detailing the types and sizes of businesses that deserve to be issued with President John Magufuli’s special Identity Cards (IDs), the Parliament heard on Tuesday, June 25, 2019.

The deputy Minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government Authorities), Mr Mwita Waitara, said the decision seeks to defuse cases of misuse of the President’s document.

“We will issue a circular on July 1, 2019, detailing who is required to be issued with the IDs and who is not. After issuance of the circular, regional authorities that go against it (the circular) will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.

Mr Mwita was responding to a question from Dr Pudenciana Kikwembe (Kavuu-CCM) which was asked on her behalf by her Bariadi West counterpart, Mr Andrew Chenge, during the House’s question and answer session.

In her key question, Dr Kikwembe said some municipal and district councils were still charging some of the charges and fees which had been legally scrapped by the government.

In the supplementary question, Mr Chenge asked as to whether or not the government intended to issue a circular, detailing the fees and charges that had been scrapped as well as the types and sizes of businesses that deserved to be issued with President Magufuli’s IDs to avoid abuse of the document. 

In December last year, President Magufuli issued over 670,000 special IDs to all regional commissioners (RCs) so they could be distributed to traders whose annual turnovers do not exceeding Sh4 million across the country.

The President’s intention was to ensure that those in possession of the IDs conduct their undertakings freely without being ‘harassed’ by officials from Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA). Each ID costs Sh20,000.

However, since then, some RCs have gone extra miles as they seek to ensure that all the IDs issued to them are distributed irrespective of who deserves it or not.

The Iringa RC, Ali Hapi, made headlines last month (May, 2019) when he came up with a list of 47 groups of people who he said deserved to be issued with the IDs.