Development comes before politics: JPM

Kigoma. As he addressed Kigoma residents at a fully packed Lake Tanganyika Stadium President John Magufuli yesterday reiterated his stance about the need for development coming before political rights.

President Magufuli, who had just laid the foundation stone to a key water project that is significant in ending Kigoma town’s water woes, said bringing development to the people must not be delayed by politics and politicking because development has no ideology.

“Most of these political activities just serve to delay our efforts to bring development to the people. There are people whose job is to make noise and oppose everything that we do,” he noted.

“The water project that we are building will help Chadema supporters, ACT supporters, CCM supporters and even those who are not members of any political party. Let us not allow politicians to delay us to bring the Tanzania we want,” President Magufuli added amidst cheers from Kigoma residents.

Kigoma is the region that is one of the poorest and less advanced in the country in terms of infrastructure development and social services.

This was not lost on politicians from both the opposition and the ruling party, who spoke yesterday at the rally ahead of President Magufuli.

President Magufuli said that many of the infrastructure projects that had been planned for Kigoma, mainly roads, were not constructed as promised due to inadequate budgetary resources but all that was promised by CCM during the elections will be fulfilled. “It is true that Kigoma has had no fair share of big infrastructure projects, but this is mainly because of inadequate budgetary resources,” President Magufuli said.

Zitto Kabwe, the outspoken Member of Parliament for Kigoma Urban constituency and Leader of ACT Wazalendo party, said he agreed with President Magufuli that “development has no ideology.”

“We people of Kigoma thank you for your efforts to bring development in the region that has been mostly forgotten. You are putting into practice your words that ‘development has no ideology’,” Mr Kabwe said.

Mr Kabwe said Kigoma resident like President Magufuli because preaches development and implements what he preaches.

President Magufuli said his focus on development as opposed to politics was the reason that he appointed opposition politicians in his government.

He had appointed Prof Kitila Mkumbo as Permanent Secrtary in the ministry of Water and Irrigation and Ms Anna Mghwira as Regional Commissioner for Kilimanjaro.

“When I appointed Prof Mkumbo many people were surprised, but I appointed him because of his competency. He is a member of the ACT party but he is implementing the CCM Manifesto,” President Magufuli said addressing Prof Mkumbo who was in the audience. President Magufuli’s ‘focus’ on development has led to what the opposition politicians and human rights activists say is “suppression” of political rights.

When he banned political rallies and demos in April last year and then the banned extended to indoor political activities President Magufulil said he did not want those activities to deter people from participating in development activities.

“The elections are over. Politicians should wait till 2020 to conduct their activities. I do not want anyone to disturb the people from engaging on development activities,” President Magufuli said when he was in a tour of Singida Region last year. What followed after that was a series of arrests of politicians who dared defy the ban on holding political rallies and indoor political meetings.

The opposition parties who have continue organising meetings despite the ban have argued the Tanzania Constitution of 1977 provides for peaceful assembly and the Political Parties Act allows registered political parties or those with parties registration to hold rallies.

The 2015 president election candidate from the opposition coalition, Edward Lowassa, told Kenyan media last month that the opposition plans to go to court to challenge the ban on political parties. Mr Lowassa who was in Kenya to attend the burial of Joseph Nkaissery, the Security minister who died suddenly on July 8, said his failure to hold political rallies was hurting his chances for winning the presidential elections in 2020.

Meanwhile President Magufuli yesterday insisted that Burundi refugees must go back to their country because it was now peaceful.

He warned refugee agencies over encouraging Burundins to come to Tanzania and pose as refugees.

He said many refugees have been reluctant to go back home because some refugee agencies give them false hope for the agencies’ own benefits.

“Some agencies benefit a lot financially from the influx of refugees. These agencies will never like the idea of refugees returning home. I tell them their days numbered,” President Magufuli said.

He said that some agencies lure Burundians by promising to relocate them to Europe and America. This, President Magufuli said, because it encourages Burundians to come to Kigoma Region on the hope that they can have a chance to go live in rich countries. About 250,000 Burundians are said to be living in refugee camps in Kigoma.