TANZANIA’S TOURISM INDUSTRY WELCOMES THEIR NEW MINISTER
(Posted 25th December 2015)
Many in Tanzania’s tourism and natural resources sector will be waking up on Christmas Day, when no newspapers are being published, to news from other channels that President John Magufuli has filled his remaining four cabinet positions, among them the portfolio of Natural Resources and Tourism
Former minister Lazaro Nyalandu knew he stood no chance for a new ministerial appointment when he was left out of the lineup announced two weeks ago and few in the tourism industry are shedding tears, still remembering the manner how he got into office when Amb. Khamis Kagesheki was hounded out of government after drawing up his now notorious list of 300 main suspects in the country’s blood ivory trade.
The new man in the portfolio is Professor Jumanne Maghembe, a Member of Parliament since 2000 for the Mwanga Constituency and immediate former Minister for Water and Irrigation.
Prof. Maghembe is a Fulbright Fellow and former Professor of Forest Science at Oregon State University but also taught at other universities like Duke, before making his entry into politics 15 years ago.
He returns to the tourism portfolio where he briefly served during former President Jakaya Kikwete’s first term of office from October 2006 to February 2008 before in multiple reshuffles, which marked those Kikwete years moving on to Education, Agriculture and finally Water and Irrigation.
Professor Maghembe is now tasked to restore confidence in Tanzania’s ability to fight poaching after under the Kikwete regime tens of thousands of elephant were butchered with no visible action until almost the end of Kikwete’s second term of office while giving the tourism industry an outlook into the coming years, whether to continue going it almost alone or else joining forces and hands with East African neighours Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.
It is understood that long overdue bilateral and multilateral talks are now once again being planned for early in 2016, more so as Kenya just days ago finally granted Tanzania’s Fastjet landing rights for flights from Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro, the absence of which was long seen as a thorn in the side of the Tanzanian aviation and tourism administrations.
For now has Tanzania’s tourism and conservation sector got their Christmas wish fulfilled with the appointment on Christmas Eve of a new minister and to him it is a warm welcome for his first one hundred days in office, after which the new direction his ministry will take from here on will be critically assessed.
