50TH INDEPENDENCE COUNTDOWN TO START THIS WEEK
It was learned overnight from a regular source in Dar es Salaam that President Jakaya Kikwete will on Wednesday night this week launch the countdown towards the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence day, due to be celebrated on the 09th of December this year.
The ‘official countdown’ will start with commemorations of the formation of the Tanganyika African National Union on the 07th of July 1954, beginning a 7 ½ year political struggle against British rule, eventually resulting in London granting independence ahead of Uganda and Kenya.
Chama Cha Mapinduzi, the present ruling party, then came into being through a merger with Zanzibar’s Afro Shirazi Party much later, when founder President Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere was in power in Tanzania.
The Tanzania Tourist Board is in a related development also due to release details of their planned ‘special events’ for the half century ‘Golden Jubilee’ celebrations, where ‘specials’ are to be offered to promote the country abroad. Several airlines have already indicated, first amongst them South African Airways, that they will ‘chip in’ with specially discounted and reduced fares to allow as many visitors to come to Tanzania in the run up of the anniversary as possible.
Watch this space.
