Tanzania's Head of State Samia Suluhu Hassan the lone African female President stands in a league of her own with a refreshing leadership style .Photo courtesy
A few years into a Presidency that many did not anticipate nor gave it much of a future when it started, Samia Suluhu Hassan has continued defying the odds with a leadership style and volume of achievements that make many envious in the male dominated club of continental leaders.
In her maiden address to Parliament on 22nd April 2021, President Samia Suluhu Hassan said the following: “This is the first time in the history of our country that we have a female President. For that reason, I know that some people believe that I will not be able to shoulder the heavy Presidential duties and responsibilities.
“I want to assure such doubting people, that the almighty God did not create ‘weaker minds for females and stronger minds for males. That is not the case at all, since all human beings are born equal. It depends much on the person’s upbringing and the environment in which he or she was brought up. I want to assure everyone that I was brought up under proper care and attention; and that I have accumulated sufficient experience in matters relating to governance”.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s 4Rs philosophy, which includes Reconciliation, Resiliency, Reforms, and Rebuilding, is a prerequisite and a necessary tool in addressing the contemporary issues affecting the country’s social, political, and economic systems after 60 years of independence.
Notably, Tanzania is one of the global and regional communities dedicated to executing Agenda 2030’s Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063’s objectives to improve people’s prosperity in social, cultural, political, and economic realms.
As a result, with continual changes and developing issues at the national, regional, and global levels, the economic and governance systems used 60 years ago are unlikely to produce the desired results in the contemporary setting.
For example, since the process of developing the new constitution halted in 2014, some members of the opposition, activists, and academics have called for the process to be restarted.
Furthermore, there have been concerns raised about the difficulties that political parties face, particularly about rallies. President Samia, on the other hand, has vowed to develop the multiparty system since taking the helm, and in March 2022, she received the preliminary report from the task force tasked with coordinating stakeholders’ perspectives on multiparty democracy in Tanzania.
“My government is dedicated to and will always seek to bring about improvements in the political and economic institutions, as well as legal election reforms.” The goal is to ensure that we meet current demands. It is consequently critical for us to understand when to make changes that affect all parts of life, even if such changes face opposition from some quarters at the moment.” Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan made the observation.”
Among President Samia's commendable measures is the construction of 15,000 classrooms for primary and secondary schools across the country.
Highlighting President Samia's achievement during her first year in office, the Minister for Education, Science, and Technology, Prof Adolph Mkenda, noted that the government is also constructing new 245 secondary schools to specifically provide education to girls, with the assurance of having teen mothers reinstated to continue with studies, a move that was vehemently repudiated by her predecessor.
"The new schools will be built inwards without secondary schools, and this is aimed at reducing the distance covered by girls to and from school. A total of 180bn/- has been allocated for this purpose," Prof Mkenda said during a news conference in Dar es Salaam.
President Samia in face-to-face talks with opposition leader Tundu Lissu has opened up on some political freedoms in the country
In addition, a total of 11.20bn/- was dispatched in June last year for upgrading teachers' training colleges in Sumbawanga (Rukwa), Dakawa, and Mhonda in Morogoro.
Through the Tanzania Covid-19 Socioeconomic Response Plan (TCRP), the government has also spent 5.44bn/- to improve infrastructure in 17 teachers' training colleges countrywide.
Even though in the five years of her predecessor, the late John Magufuli, parents and guardians of the students in Standard 1 up to Form Four were relieved from paying school fees, Samia had since extended the free education program to Form Five and Six students.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan. Tanzania has broadened its engagement with the rest of the world.
In the same vein, part three of the Written Laws, Miscellaneous Amendments (No.4) Bill, 2016 proposed an amendment of the Higher Education Student’s Loan Board (HESLB) Act, 2004 to take diploma courses on board and ensure they benefit from the loans. This is the new move that had most diploma students smile broadly as the opposite was the case during the past administration which saw only bachelor’s degree students benefit from the higher education students’ loans board.
Unlike Magufuli, President Samia reopened Tanzania’s diplomatic relations with the world and resumed Tanzania’s frequent travels by a head of state. This has seen her tour from Beijing to Brussels. Dakar to Davos. Dubai to Doha, London to New York Nairobi, Los Angeles to Kinshasa, and this week, Pretoria. She helped resolve most of the petty trading quarrels with Kenya on her state visit and boosted ties across the East African Community.
Samia has attended dozens of meetings from a regional level to international, in a quest to repair old ties and cement existing ones while at the same time building new ties. She used trips and meetings to boost Dodoma’s Foreign Direct Investment and source funds to finance Tanzania’s ambitious projects such as the standard gauge railway, the Julius Nyerere Hydropower project, roads, and other projects.
President Hassan has transformed the country’s economy with the GDP growing from USD 69.7 billion in 2021 to USD 85.42 billion in 2022.
The country’s economic growth has been impressive, and it is anticipated to continue as a reckoning force in East Africa and the region.
The president has been credited with implementing policies that have helped to improve the country’s economy. The implementation of strategies from government subsidies and credits in agriculture is attributed to scaling up the economy.
Nevertheless, liberalization policies in the form of import tariffs on remittance services facilitated greater trade and investment opportunities. In terms of massive-scale development, President Samia secured funding from the African Development Bank for &2.7 billion for a new railway project between Dar es Salaam and Isaka in Shinyanga Region.
President Samia shares a light moment with Namibia's Hage Geingob in Windhoek .Photo courtesy
The contribution of the railway is expected to update the country’s transportation infrastructure, provide millions of jobs, and stimulate economic growth.
Despite significant strides, critics have been wary of the ballooning national debt, with the finance ministry allaying fears of the public that the debt looks ‘sustainable’. The government has allocated a whopping Sh10.48 trillion to service the national debt in the Financial Year 2023/24.
The amount is a 15 percent rise from the Sh9.1 trillion that the Parliament approved for paying the loans that the government took from various sources in the current 2022/2023 Financial Year.
Meanwhile, Tanzania’s total national debt stock, which included both the public and private sectors stood at $42.26 billion (about Sh97 trillion) at the end of April 2023.
But Finance Minister, Mwigulu Nchemba says the debt was sustainable in the short, medium, and longer terms, explaining that Tanzania’s debt-to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio currently stands at 31.8 percent which is well below the capacity of 55 percent.
