May the better team win in the Dar Derby

Today, all roads lead to the National Stadium in the country’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam. That is where traditional soccer antagonists Young Africans Sports Club (‘Yanga’) and Simba Sports Club (‘Simba’) clash in the ongoing Mainland Tanzania Premier League (TPL).

The match has been holding the attention of football fans all over Tanzania and beyond the country’s borders where the two clubs hold sway. Pressure is mounting among the fans who are expected to turn out and fill the 60,000-seater stadium to witness the two teams battling it out for points in their second encounter this soccer season.

Performance-wise, Young Africans is at the top with 58 points after playing 23 matches. Simba is in the fourth standing, with 36 points after playing 15 matches.

Today’s encounter is bound to be thrilling – if past encounters between the two bitter soccer rivals are anything to judge by. The two clubs’ fans must be prepared to accept any match results – if only because winning, drawing or losing a match is a characteristic of competitive soccer.

What is important is that soccer clubs and their teams must always bear in mind that their first and foremost task is to give back to their fans value for their money – by playing quality, entertaining football at all times.

For their part, club leaders and fans must always be well-behaved, and not be riotous even under the most trying circumstances, including poor/biased refereeing – and, especially, when their team loses matches. Equally important is for match officials to do their job impartially, always adhering to the 17 hallowed soccer rules and other guidelines by the world soccer governing body Fifa and its national representatives.

When all is said and done, we wish everyone all the best – and may the better team win!

INVEST MORE IN TRANSPORT

As Tanzania implements its industrialisation agenda, economic production will rise – which calls for robust transport infrastructure. Road, air and water modes of transport should be improved to cope with the resulting upsurge in the need to move inputs and manufactured products around and about as required.

It, therefore, came as good news on Monday that four more terminals would be constructed for Tanga port.

The four are Kigombe, Mkwaja, Kipumbwi and Moa, which are notorious landing places for smuggled goods. Indeed, Tanga port is being upgraded to become the preferred terminal for crude oil exports in East Africa.

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline will be transporting crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga, making the port even busier.

For far too long, the Indian Ocean coastline has been dotted with ‘unofficial ports’ for smugglers, thus denying the government much-needed revenues.

Authorities say 48 landing sites are unofficial ports in the Tanga Region shoreline alone.

Therefore, the government is right to adopt some of them as official facilities to curb smuggling and revenue haemorrhage – while upgrading some into terminals for the expanded Tanga port. We call on the government to continue investing heavily in infrastructure to improve transport and logistics.