Tanzania

The Tanzanian Government has come under pressure to make public the revised version of the Constitutional Review Act 2011. Participants at a weekend meeting accused the government of being reluctant to issue the document and vowed that they would not relent in their quest to have it released. The chairman of the Constitutional Debate Forum, Mr Deus Kibamba, said the government appeared not to be ready for change, and was trying to delay the process. The country might experience chaos should t...read more

The British arms and aircraft firm BAE Systems has been severely criticised by a UK parliamentary inquiry into a corruption case surrounding an air-traffic-control deal with Tanzania. MPs accused BAE of unilaterally setting up a compensation arrangement for Tanzania that was a 'complete sham'. BAE admitted to not keeping full accounting records of £8m ($12m) it paid to an agent who brokered the deal.

Following a hearing before an British immigration judge, Tanzanian gay asylum seeker Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas was released from Harmondsworth Removal Centre at 5pm and was also removed from the 'detained fast track' process. The judge's decision has not been written but a witness at the court hearing said that it was on the basis that previous immigration judiciary decisions could be regarded as possibly 'unsafe' and that more time was needed for both a psychiatrist's report as well as for an expe...read more

In what is being hailed as a victory for conservationists and the wildlife of the Serengeti, the Tanzanian government has cancelled plans for a controversial highway that would have dissected the Serengeti National Park. According to scientists, the road would have severed the migration route of 1.5 million wildebeest and a half million other antelope and zebra, with indirect impacts, such as poaching and new development, exacerbating the situation.

A climate of non-disclosure pervades the sharing of basic school related information despite policies and pronouncements to the contrary. In a research brief titled 'Funding of Dar es Salaam Primary Schools: How accessible is school level information?', Uwazi at Twaweza shows that because of a climate of non disclosure, 80 per cent of the teachers interviewed could not correctly state the capitation grant amount entitlement per pupil, which is pegged at US$10 per year according to the Primar...read more

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