Court sets free 52 Ponda followers

                                                        Muslim cleric Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda

Dar es Salaam. The High Court yesterday set free 52 followers of Muslim cleric Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda, who have been serving a one-year jail term.

They were sentenced by the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in March 21, this year, to three years imprisonment after being convicted with conspiracy, unlawful assembly and rioting.

The punishment ran co-currently, resulting to the accused serving only one year in jail.

However, judge Salvatory Bongole set free the prisoners yesterday after being satisfied that the punishment given to them was not correct, according to the offence they stood charged with.

The decision by the High Court followed an appeal filed by the alleged supporters of the secretary general of the Council of Islamic Organisations.

They asked the Court to quash and set aside both conviction and sentence on the ground that the trial magistrate erred on a number of facts in convicting them on three criminal charges and sentencing them to serve a one-year jail term for each count.

In his judgment, the Judge dismissed the conviction and one-year jail term for the first offence of conspiracy.

According to the judge, because the accused have been convicted with unlawful assembly and rioting - which are substantive counts - the offence of conspiracy collapsed automatically.

“You were given two punishments for one offence,” said the judge.

Concerning the remaining two counts of illegal assembly and rioting, the judge ruled that after going through evidence, he was satisfied that the prosecution evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused committed the offence.

However, the judge agreed with the defense counsel that the Act which convicted them was not followed in meting the punishment.

The judge elaborated that the followers were charged with disobeying a lawful order given by the Police that prohibited them from rioting.source the Citizen

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Tanzania wants China to refurbish Tazara railway

The railway link between Dar es Salaam and Lusaka, which was established in the early- to mid-1970s, then financed and built by the Chinese government, has for long been ailing as a result of poor maintenance and management problems. The line, which is over 1,860 kilometers long, covers some of Africa’s most challenging terrain but it was the lack of rolling stock and locomotives combined with regular line outages which have reduced the initial cargo volumes considerably in recent years, causing Zambia to increasingly use their rail links with South Africa to have reliable access to a deep sea port. The government-owned Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation has now reportedly offered to refurbish the line, in phases, when meeting the Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda during a recent visit to Beijing.

A first section due for overhaul, once the two governments have agreed and signed the relevant agreements, will be the stretch from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro before thereafter the second section from Morogoro to Dodoma will be tackled. The TAZARA Railways is operating both cargo and passenger trains and has in the early years after the launch in 1976 provided a crucial link between Zambia and Tanzania, giving the former access to the Indian Ocean for exports and imports alike while for Tanzania it provided a vital domestic transport axis across the entire country to the border with Zambia.  source tal Domestic and tourism transport

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Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda meet again

Nairobi/Dar es Salaam. The heads of state of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda are scheduled to meet later this month in Kigali amid growing concerns about Tanzania’s apparent isolation by the “coalition of the willing”.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame will host his Kenyan and Ugandan counterparts, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Yoweri Museveni, respectively, on October 28 and 29 to discuss joint infrastructure projects, The Citizen has reliably learnt.

On the agenda will be the planned Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali standard-gauge railway, an oil pipeline connecting the three countries, an oil refinery and construction of a modern port in Lamu, Kenya. It was reported last weekend that divisions within the East African Community (EAC) had deepened after Burundi said it was not party to the “coalition of the willing” that has left Tanzania out.

Some prominent government and business leaders have said Tanzania has been increasingly isolated by Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, whose leaders have met on a number of occasions in recent months.

EAC Secretary-General Richard Sezibera said in Nairobi yesterday that he was not aware that Tanzania had been sidelined or isolated from the regional integration process.

He said alliances among some EAC partner states that excluded Tanzania were not proof that the largest country in the bloc was being systematically isolated by its partners.

“From the secretariat point of view, we are not aware. I can’t say if Tanzania has been sidelined or is a reluctant partner in the bloc,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the EAC Secretary-General’s Forum.

Dr Sezibera was pressed by journalists to explain recent events on economic integration issues from which Tanzania was excluded and whether they did not confirm that the country was being eased out of the integration process.

The EAC boss said it was not true that Tanzania was a reluctant partner in the bloc as claimed in some quarters. Allegations that the country is delaying EAC programmes were repeated again yesterday during the forum, which attracted representatives from civil society organisations and the private sector in the region.

“If the implementation of the EAC activities is used as a yardstick, then all countries are guilty,” Dr Sezibera said. He added that it could not be claimed that Tanzania was paying lip service to EAC aspirations by differing with its partners on issues such as the use of national IDs as valid travel documents.

“The Treaty is very clear. No partner state can be sidelined. You know we operate on the principle of subsidiarity and variable geometry in which every country is allowed enough room for internal consultations on key decisions,” he said.

He added, however, that the Tanzanian authorities were “more competent” to explain if the country was being sidelined because the matter had not been officially brought to the attention of the Arusha-based Secretariat. The Minister for EAC Cooperation, Mr Samuel Sitta, said recently that the government was concerned by the way Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda were sidelining Tanzania in some key regional projects.

source The Citizen

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