Hon. Bernard K. Membe, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation;
Your Excellency Dean of the Diplomatic Corps Ambassador Khalfani Mpango;
Excellencies, Heads of Diplomatic Missions and International Organisations;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Happy New Year!!
I thank you for accepting my invitation and thank you for coming to our annual get together. You are warmly welcome. Karibu sana.

As it is customary at these occasions, we reflect on the past year and ponder about the future. The year 2010 was a very eventful year for Tanzania. We registered many successes on many fronts and encountered a number of challenges. We were able to tackle some of them and continue to deal with others.

On the political side it was a year of elections. Thank God things concluded well despite the tough competitions both in the Zanzibar and the Union elections. Tanzania came out of the elections peaceful and stable as we have always been. Democracy is taking roots and becoming more vibrant though still fragile. The recent unfortunate events in Arusha is a case in point. We pray that it will be an isolated incident and the first and last of its kind. While pursuing the law we will not be oblivious of other avenues to restore harmony.

I am very delighted with the elections in Zanzibar and its outcome. Different from the last three elections, last year’s elections were smooth and, almost, incident free. Zanzibar is calm and peaceful like it has never been before. My humble and passionate appeal to our development partners is to extend the much needed development assistance to Zanzibar. Poverty of the people and low levels of development have been at the heart of Zanzibar’s instability. The Zanzibar government has been doing its best but it is very much constrained by lack of adequate resources. Increased development assistance to the Zanzibar government, therefore would be highly desirable. A lot of expectations have been raised to the new government of national unity in Zanzibar. Failure to deliver on these expectations will be heartbreaking to the people of Zanzibar. Please do the needful.
Excellencies;

In the past year, the Tanzanian economy performed well, indicating that recovery from the effects of the global economic slowdown is well underway. Almost all sectors of the economy registered encouraging progress. The macro-economic indicators are relatively strong. For example, GDP grew at 7 percent, while inflation declined to 5.5 percent in November, 2010 from an average of 12.1 percent in 2009. There was a bumper harvest of maize and other staple food crops thus enhancing the food security situation in the country. Tourism has been bouncing back steadily as well as exports. As a result, foreign exchange earnings increased and so was the situation of foreign exchange reserves.

Our biggest challenge now, is about, consolidating the gains, maintaining the momentum and do better this year. This is my wish and commitment as much as it is the wish and commitment of everybody else in government. We are ready to do our part and we will use our good offices and influence to make our people play their part accordingly.

Excellencies;

You have always been our invaluable partners in our development endeavours. You are in many ways part of the successes we have made. We thank you so much for your support over the many years, and we look forward to continued support this year and in the coming years.

Excellencies;

There are two issues about the Tanzanian economy, that are causing some anxiety and concern which I would like to share with you. The first one is rainfall. We fear that this year we may not get good rains in many parts of the country. Even in the Southern Highlands, (our granary) the rainfall trend is not as good as they have always been. We keep on praying that the rains will be good, otherwise there will be difficulties with the food security situation this year. The second thing is the trend of oil prices. The recent sharp increase in the world market is a matter of great concern to us. We hope the situation will not get worse and take us to the levels of 2007/2008.
Focus on the Economy

Excellencies;

I intend to devote the greater part of my time in this second term focussing on building the economy. Besides directing government support to the productive sectors of agriculture and manufacturing, we will also give due attention to improving the investment climate in the country. We will do everything possible to sort out the issues that impede a vibrant investment environment in the country.

In agriculture, we will pursue with renewed vigour the implementation of the objectives of Kilimo Kwanza. We look forward with great anticipation to the conclusion of the discussions and design of the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative. Surely, this will advance the course of bringing about the green revolution in Tanzania. If successful, SAGCOT will be a model of Public Private Partnership in agriculture and of partnership between large scale farmers and small holder farmers. We will replicate this model in other parts of the country.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Executive Committee of SAGCOT for the wonderful work done so far. I also thank all our partners including the private sector who have expressed readiness to support this new initiative.

Excellencies;

We will continue to recapitalise the Tanzania Investment Bank (TIB) to enable it become a vibrant development bank that gives medium and long term credit to Tanzanian enterprises particularly manufacturers. We will also ensure that we complete all processes to establish the Agricultural Development Bank to enable farmers to access much needed credit.

In building these two financial institutions we welcome the support and participation of banks and other financial institutions from friendly countries like yours.
Strengthen Government Finances

Excellencies;

We will give special attention to strengthening revenue collection and observance of public expenditure discipline. We have seen significant increase in revenue collection in recent years. We would like to see ourselves going beyond 500 billion shillings a month from the current 453 billion shillings a month. We will identify areas of weakness and strengthen them. We will also continue with measures to broaden our tax base.

With regard to financial discipline, we will ensure that Departmental Expenditure Committees function accordingly. We will strengthen Internal Audit Offices in Ministries and government departments. We will continue to facilitate further the office of the Controller and Auditor General. We will also sort out some of the outstanding issues with the office of the Accountant General.

I believe, if these measures are successfully implemented, we will achieve greater improvement in the management of government finances. We will pursue these objectives with diligence and zeal because they are critical to strengthening the government capacity to deliver on its duties and functions. We appreciate your support in this regard. Please continue to extend the invaluable helping hand again this year and in the coming years.
The Regional Political and Security Situation

Your Excellencies,

In 2010 Tanzania remained active in international fora although almost in the whole of the second half, our participation was a bit muted because of our own elections. We will be more proactive this year at regional, continental and global level, now that the elections are behind us. At regional level we will continue to actively participate in the integration process of the East African Community and the activities of the SADC and the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region.

At the continental level we will continue to be faithful and active members of the African Union as we have always been. I am happy with the progress being made by the African Union and many African countries on many fronts. However, I am saddened with what is going on in Madagascar and Cote d’Ivoire causing unwarranted suffering to the people of these great countries. I hope President Laurent Gbagbo will see reason and heed appeals by the UN, African Union, African leaders as well as other world leaders to respect the will of the people of Cote d’Ivoire. Likewise, we appeal to President Rajoelina of Madagascar not to continue to obstruct progress towards getting to a solution that satisfies all the parties to the conflict in his country. I am confident that once these two leaders change their current stance, there will be speedy resolution of the standoffs in both Madagascar and Cote d’Ivoire.

Excellencies;

I would like to reiterate Tanzania’s support to the people of Southern Sudan on the forthcoming referendum that will determine their destiny and that of Sudan as a whole. We urge them to conduct a peaceful, credible, free and fair process which will give the people of Southern Sudan the freedom to decide on their own free will, what they want to become. We wish them well as they take this historic step forward this coming Sunday.

Somalia

Your Excellencies,

Tanzania is very much concerned with the situation in Somalia and the security threat it poses to all of us in the region and the world. The situation in Somalia presents to the world a humanitarian crisis of grand proportion. Millions of people are suffering from displacement, hunger and depravation. Many die and sustain wounds because of the fighting. Somalia today is a safe haven for breeding terrorists who pose a threat to Somalia itself and neighbouring countries. Somalia, today, is home to pirates who terrorise shipping lines in the Indian Ocean.

It is our duty, therefore, each one of us to contribute whatever we can to find a speedy resolution of the crisis. A number of African countries are willing to contribute in many ways in this regard. Some are ready to contribute troops for peace keeping while some for training of the Somali army. The only constraint they face is lack of the requisite resources to do the job. It is my humble view that, to expect poor African countries to finance their participation in Somalia is an exercise in futility. We continue to appeal to the international community to assist.

Piracy

Excellencies;

Piracy is another menace which causes a lot of concern to Tanzania as it is the case with other countries. It is making shipping in the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa up to the waters of Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros and Seychelles risky and expensive. It threatens the well being of East African ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

We commend the good work being done by international navies operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. Because of that, piracy activities have moved further south as far as Tanzanian waters up to the Comoros. Our navy has had several encounters with pirates in our territorial waters. They have managed to overcome them and apprehended one pirate who is facing justice in our courts. Despite the good work, we still have operational difficulties in the deep sea waters. We are still struggling to overcome this handicap. We have raised this matter with a number of you, a few times and we are awaiting favourable response.

With regard to the prosecution of pirates in Tanzania, I would like to assure you that, we are on course. We have amended our legislation and made it more responsive and accommodative. We can now deal with the matter better within the Tanzanian courts of law. Of course, we are still grappling with the logistical and institutional arrangements to be able to undertake prosecutions and internment of pirates in accordance with the requisite international standards. We appreciate the expression of support by some friendly governments to assist our government in building this capacity.

Your Excellencies,

I am of the opinion that we need to find a lasting solution to this problem. We have to go beyond the pirates being caught at sea. Piracy has become big business to some people in Somalia and elsewhere, with networks organising and executing it. There are people who own and lead these networks and mastermind the piracy activities in the Indian Ocean. Unless we get these people and hold them responsible, this problem will persist. I know the current international legal instruments do not provide for that. Let us try to do something. We can either put in place an International Convention against Piracy or have a Security Council resolution to take care of this aspect of the problem. I believe, this way we will hit the serpent on the head and deal a decisive blow to this heinous crime.
Millennium Development Goals
Your Excellencies,

I mentioned earlier that Tanzania will continue to be a faithful and responsible member of the international community. We will make our humble contribution towards advancing international peace and development. It is on this merit that we have been active and participated in many UN and international initiatives. I promise to continue to do so now and in future.

That is why I have accepted with humility and pleasure to Co-Chair with His Excellency Mr. Stephen Harper, Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Canada, the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health. I look forward, with great anticipation to working with him and the other Commissioners in advancing the cause of reducing maternal and child mortalities on this planet.

Independence Celebrations

Your Excellencies,

This year 2011, is very special for us. As you all know we will be celebrating 50 years of the independence of Tanzania Mainland on December 9th, 2011. The very fact that we have survived as an independent, united, peaceful and stable country for half a century is a big achievement, indeed. It is 50 years of steady progress in many spheres of the socio-economic life of our nation.

We have decided to celebrate this day in a manner that befits such an auspicious occasion. We shall use the opportunity of this occasion to do an in-depth evaluation of the achievements made, the challenges we encountered on the way and where we are headed to. We will look at all aspects of the life of our nation and its people. Among the important things we will also do, in this regard, is an initiative review process of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania. The people of Tanzania will be fully involved in the process and ultimately, they will be the one to decide. To this effect, I will soon constitute a Constitutional Review Commission to coordinate and guide the process.

As we celebrate Tanganyika’s 50 years of independence we will also be celebrating half a century of good diplomatic relations and cooperation with some of your countries and institutions. Through this cooperation we have supported each other and Tanzania benefitted a lot. We thank you for your cooperation and support, we look forward to 50 more years of even more vibrant cooperation.

Once again I wish to extend to you and through you to your Principals and countrymen and women, my very warm greetings and best wishes, for a brighter, secure and prosperous 2011.
I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Thank you for your kind attention.