Ikulu Yatoa Tamko Kuhusu Ndege ya Rais

Kwa kweli ninapenda jinsi Ikulu inayojitahidi kutoa Press Release siku hizi. Enzi za Mwalimu mtu angepelekwa huko 'MAHALA' na kuminywa mapumbu ili ashike adabu kumsema Rais.

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 *TAARIFA KWA VYOMBO VYA HABARI*

Gazeti laTanzania Daima la leo, Jumatano, Januari 25, 2012, kwenye ukurasa wake wakwanza limechapisha habari yenye kichwa cha habari, *“Ndege ya  JK utata: Iko nje kwa miezi miwili. Serikali yakwama kuilipia.”

Miongoni mwa yaliyoandikwa kwenye habari hiyo ni pamoja na “Ukata unaiokabili Serikali umesababisha kukwama kuilipia ndege hiyo maalum ya Rais…Ndege ya Rais mahususi kwa ajili ya safari za namna hiyo imezuiliwa njebaada ya  Serikali kukwama kulipia gharama za matengenezo yake…Kutokuwepo kwa ndege
kumesababisha Rais Kikwete na ujumbe wake wa watu 14, ulioondoka nchini jana kwenda Davous, nchini Sweden kuhudhuria mkutano wa  dunia wa uchumi, kuondoka na ndege ya Shirika la Ndege la Qatal”.

Limeendelea Gazeti hili la Tanzania Daima kudai kuwa kwa sababu ya kutokuwepo kwa ndege hiyo ya Rais gharama za safari hiyo ya Rais zimeongezeka na ziara hiyo ya Raisya siku nne kuhudhuria mkutano huo
itagharimu kiasi cha shilingi milioni 300. Aidha,Gazeti hili linadai  kuwa mkutano huo hauna tija kwa taifa, kwamba Rais Kikwete amehudhuria mikutano hiyo mara nyingi lakini hakuna faida iliyopatikana kwa taifa.

Kwa hakika, maandishi na kauli hizi za ovyo na zisizokuwa za kweli za Gazeti  la Tanzania Daima zinalenga kuupotosha umma wa Tanzania bila sababu za msingi na hivyo kuusababishia umma chuki isiyokuwa na msingi kwa Rais.

Katika kuuelezea umma ukweli wa safari hiyo ya Mheshimiwa Rais Kikwete tunapenda kutoka ufafanuziufuatao:

Kwanza, kama tulivyoeleza, kwa usahihi, katika taarifa yetu kwa vyombo vya habari jana jioni, Mheshimiwa Rais Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete amekwenda katika mji/kijiji chaDavos, nchini Uswisi kuhudhuria Mkutano wa World Economic; Forum (WEF) unaoanzaleo. Rais Kikwete hakuwenda katika mji wa Davous, nchini Sweden kama linavyosema Gazeti hili.  Aidha, Rais Kikwete na ujumbe  wake umesafiri kwa ndegeya Shirika la Ndege la Qatar na siyo Qatal kama linavyoripoti Tanzania Daima.

Pili,Serikali haijakwama, kwa sababu zozote zile, kulipia matengenezo ya  kawaida (routine maintenance) ya Ndege ya Rais. Hili limefafanuliwa vizuri  na ipasavyo naMtendaji Mkuu wa Wakala wa Ndege za Serikali, Rubani Kennan, Paul Mhaiki jana. Isipokuwa nivyema kuongeza kuwa matengenezo ya ndege  hiyo yalimalizika juzi tu, Jumatatu,Januari 23, mwaka huu, wakati ndege hiyo ilipofanyiwa safari ya majaribio (testflight) kule Savannah, Georgia, Marekani na wala siyo miezi miwili iliyopitakama linavyodai Tanzania
Daima. Hivyo, madai kuwa ndege hiyo imezuiliwa nje kwamiezi miwili sasa kwa sababu ya Serikali kushindwa kulipia gharama zamatengenezo ni porojo tu zisizokuwa na msingi.

 Tatu, nivigumu kujua Gazeti la Tanzania Daima limepata wapi habari  kuwa safari hiyo yasiku nne inagharimu kiasi cha sh. milioni 300. Ukweli ni safari ya MheshimiwaRais Kikwete na ujumbe wake ni ya siku nane, kama  tulivyoeleza jana, ambako atahudhuria mikutano ya WEF na ule wa Wakuu  wa Nchi Wanachama wa Afrika (AU) mjini Addis Ababa, Ethiopia atakapowasili Jumamosi, Januari 28, 2021. Hivyo, si kweli kwa Gazeti hili kudai kuwa nauli tu na matumizi ya safari ya Mheshimiwa Rais ni shilingi milioni 300 kwa siku nne tu.

Nne,  Tanzania Daima  linadai kuwa safari za Mheshimiwa Rais mjini Davos hazina tija na wala faida yoyote. Huu pia ni uongo mwingine wa dhahiri wa Gazeti hili.

Tunapenda kukumbusha faida chache tu zilizotokana moja kwa moja na Mheshimiwa Rais Kikwete kushiriki mikutano ya WEF kama ifuatavyo:

 (a) Moja, ni kubuniwa na kupitishwa kwa Mpango Kabambe wa Uendelezaji Kilimo katika Ukanda wa Kusini mwa Tanzania wa Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) uliozinduliwa wakati wa WEF mwaka jana.

Mpango huu utakaotekelezwa kwa pamoja na sekta binafsi na sekta za umma  kwa  kushirikisha Serikali ya Tanzania, Mashirika ya Kimataifa, Makampuni ya imataifa unalengakuleta faida zifuatazo:

 (i) Uwekezaji wa kiasi cha dola za Marekanibilioni 3.4 katika kilimo cha  Tanzania na kuongeza uzalishaji wa kilimo hichomara tatu katika miaka 20 ijayo.

(ii) Kuchochea uzalishaji mkubwa wa mazao ya chakula na biashara kwenye eneo ya hekta 350,000.

(iii) Kutengeneza kiasi cha ajira 420,000 za kudumu.

(iv) Kuwatoa kwa namna ya kudumu kiasi cha watu milioni mbili katika umasikini.

(v)Kuleta usalama wa kudumu wa chakula kwa kuhakikisha kinapatikana chakula cha kutosha kwa Tanzania na nchi za jirani. 

(vi) Kuboresha miundombinu ya umwagiliaji, barabara, reli, nishati na  bandari katika eneo lote la Mradi wa SAGCOT.

(vii) Kuwahakikishia wakulima masoko ya mazao yao,kuwawezesha kupata dhana za kisasa, na waanzishia
mifumo ya kisasa yaumwagiliaji.

(viii )Kuingizia wakulima mapato ya kiasi cha dola za Marekani bilioni 1.2 kila mwaka. (Kiasi cha dola za Marekani milioni 50  zinaendelea kuingizwa katika mfuko wa uanzishwaji wa Mpango wa SAGCOT utakaotelekezwa kwa kuanzia  katika maeneo ya Sumbawanga (Rukwa), Ihemi na Ludewa (Iringa), Kilombero (Morogoro), Mbarali (Mbeya), na Rufiji (Pwani)

(b)  Pili, ni uwekezaji kabambe wa kiasi cha dolaza Marekani milioni 20 katika mfumo wa upakuaji wa mbolea kwenye Bandari ya Dares Salaam unaofanywa  na  Kampuni ya Yara International, moja ya makampuni makubwa zaida ya uzalishaji wa Kampuni ya Yara International, moja ya makampuni makubwa zaida ya  uzalishaji wa mbolea duniani.

Yara International ni mmoja wa washirika wakubwakatika SAGCOT na uwekezaji wake unalenga kuhakikisha kuwa Tanzania na hatamajirani wanapata mbolea ya  kutosha kwa ajili ya kuimarisha kilimo.

(c) Tatu, mikutano ya WEF ni shughuli moja inayomwezesha Kiongozi wa chikukutana na kufanya mazungumzo na wakubwa wote duniani – wawe wa  siasa,  wabiashara, wa uchumi, wa uwekezaji, wa kijamii – katika jitihada zake zakuitangaza Tanzania kama kituo muhimu cha uwekezaji.

Katika siku tatu zijazo, kwa mfano, Mheshimiwa Kikwete miongoni mwa watu; wengine atakutanana Bwana Bill Gates wa Bill& Bellinda Foundation,  Naibu  Waziri wa Uchumi,Nishati na Kilimo wa Marekani Bwana Robert Hormats, Rais wa Benki ya Dunia Bwana Bob Zoellick, aliyekuwa Waziri Mkuu wa Australia Bwana Kevin Ruud, Mkuu wa Shirika la Misaada ya Maendeleo la Marekani Bwana Raj Shah, Mtendaji Mkuu wa Benki ya ABSA Bi. Maria Ramos, na Waziri Mkuu wa Thailand Bi. Yingluck Shinawatra.

Tunapenda kumalizia kwa kusisitiza, kwa mara nyingine tena, kuwa ni  vyema Gazeti laTanzania Daima lijiridhishe na usahihi na habari zake kabla ya kuzichapishakama inavyoelekeza misingi mikuu ya uandishi wa habari na weledi wa kazi hiyo.Uandishi wa habari za uongo unaleta hofu na kuanzisha  uzushi usiokuwa na sababu zozote miongoni mwa wananchi na hiyo siyo kazi ya uandishi wa habari.

*Imetolewa na*:
*Kurugenzi ya Mawasiliano ya Rais*,
Ikulu, *DAR ES SALAAM*.
25 Januari, 2012

Ziara ya Matonya Ulaya

MATONYA ATUA ATHENS GREECE LEO 25 JAN 2012 SAA 18.30 TAYARI KABISA KUJIANDAA NA TOUR YAKE YA EUROPE AKIANZIA NA MUNICH TAREH.28 JAN. SWISS 04 FEB .HOLLAND 11 FEB. ATAREJEA GREECE 18 FEB, NA KUENDELEA TENA BELGUIM/SWEEDEN/NORWAY NA N.K

Tofauti Kati ya Rais Obama na Mitt Romney

Huyo mgombea uraisi wa Marekani kupitia chama cha Rpeublican, Mitt Romney aliwahi kuwa Gavana wetu hapa Massachusetts. Kila siku alionyesha jinsi alivyotajiri na asiyejua wala kujali maisha ya mtu wa kawaida anayeamka kwenda kazini asubuhi na kurudi nyumbani huko akifikiria atalipaje kodi. Kodi ziliongeka. Kuna siku waandishi wa habari walimwuliza kuhusu bei za vyakula kashindwa kujibu.Watu wengi hawana ottoman wala nafasi ya kuiweka!   Sasa tunasikia kuwa analipa kodi kwa asilimia ya chini kuliko mtu wa kawaida. Mwacha awe mgombea kupitia kiti cha Republican. Hawezi kumshinda Rais Obama!

Wake Up Lazy Africans!

Walevi wakinya pombe bila kujali kuwa kuna mafuriko! (Picha kwa hisani ya Michuzi Blog)

Nimepata kwa email: Ni Maoni ya MZambia

Zambia Insights


Friday, 13 January 2012

By Field Ruwe

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished.

In this demes...ne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come.

When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.“

Where are you from?” he asked.
“Zambia.”
 “Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”
 “Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”
“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”
My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked.

“Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.
“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”
He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”
Quett Masire’s name popped up.“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”
At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.
“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down. From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.“That’s white man’s country,” he said.
 “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”
I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”
He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.

”The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”
 “There’s no difference.”
“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.” (Hii ni Kweli  Afrika Kote Jamani!!!!)

For a moment I was wordless.\

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”
I was thinking. He continued.

“Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

 “That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure.

 You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure.

Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned.

 “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”He tempered his voice.

“Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something.

“Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies.

I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.
Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.
I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here) Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters.

Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior. A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country.

Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History

I-What?