TRA saves tax through public auction

The Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), has recovered about 289.5m/- unpaid tax through public auction of properties owned by Kabanga Inn Limited, it has been revealed.  The Kagera Regional TRA Manager, Mr Adam Nth’oga said in an exclusive interview that the auction was conducted yesterday morning by Mr Lyasuka Swalehe from Suka Security Auction Company at Kamachumu Township, Muleba district. Kabanga Inn Limited had accumulated unpaid tax amounting to 289,480,932/-. The auctioned properties were for the water producing factory, adding that the highest bidder, M/s Kabanga Bottlers Limited offered 370m/-. He paid 100 per cent of the amount. One of the directors for Kabanga Bottlers Limited, Mr George Kabantega, said the company will continue to produce natural spring water.  “We are determined to push ahead the industrialisation agenda and support efforts by the Fifth Phase Government under President John Magufuli.  The new owners will purchase modern machinery and increase job opportunities,” he said. Kabanga Inn Limited is owned by the late businessman cum politician, Christopher Ngaiza

Africans seeking for asylum in Diaspora

Although he has been extradited from Israel, 30-year-old Eritrean Johny Goytiom Kafl who had sought for refuge brims with satisfaction as he looks out upon thousands of fellow protesters rallying against the impending expulsions all while peacefully secured by police. It’s such displays of civil action that he most admires about his adoptive home of the past nine years since he escaped one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, and then faced torture, kidnapping and abuse during his exodus throughout Africa. “You are treated like a human being in Israel,” he said in fluent Hebrew. “Here I am not afraid, but in Eritrea, I was afraid.” He was heard as saying. Kafl, along with tens of thousands of other Africans, now fear their stay in the Holy Land is coming to an abrupt end. Israel has given many of them until April 1 to leave for an unnamed African destination. Israel considers the vast majority of the nearly 40,000 migrants to be job seekers and says it has no legal obligation to keep them. 

 

African migrants gather during a protest in front of Rwanda embassy in Herzeliya, Israel. Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers, nearly all from dictatorial Eritrea and war-torn Sudan, fear their stay in Israel is coming to an abrupt end. The Israeli government has given them until April 1 to leave the country. 

The Africans, nearly all from dictatorial Eritrea and war-torn Sudan, say they fled for their lives and face renewed danger if they return. As the world grapples with the worst refugee crisis since World War II, the issue has struck a raw nerve in Israel — established on the heels of the Holocaust. Critics at home and in the Jewish American community have called the government’s proposed response unethical and a stain on Israel’s image as a refuge for Jewish migrants. The optics of black asylum seekers accusing the country of racism has turned into a public relations liability for Israel, and groups of Israeli doctors, academics, poets, Holocaust survivors, rabbis and pilots have all appealed to halt the plan. But the government remains steadfast, bristling at what it considers cynical comparisons to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. The Africans started moving toward Israel in 2005 after neighboring Egypt violently quashed a refugee demonstration and word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel. Tens of thousands crossed the porous desert border before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx. But Israel has struggled with what to do with those already in the country, alternating between plans to deport them and offering them menial jobs in hotels and local municipalities. Kafl, like many of his compatriots, fled Eritrea to escape its lifelong military conscription in slavery-like conditions and fears death if he returns.

SOURCES: Associated Press

TPB banking transactions moves digital

In a bide to keep abreast with the global technological changes, banks have seen the need to facilitate their banking activities through, mobile phones. The bank has seen this is the only way to get closer to their customers as they would also in turn get an easy access of the banking transactions. Tanzania Postal Bank, popularly known as TPB Bank does not left behind and this time around, the bank has decided to facilitate their transactions through mobile phones as witnessed over the week end. TPB Bank PLC in partnership with the Savings at the Frontier (SatF) programme, yesterday launched an innovative 1 million US dollar project to connect the bank with savings groups in Tanzania. The overall aim is to help Tanzanians in rural and periurban areas to save money safely and conveniently through their mobile phones. Speaking during a joint news conference in Dar es Salaam, TPB Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Sabasaba Moshingi said the project will start in Ruvuma and then expand to Mtwara, Lindi, Njombe, Iringa and Morogoro. “Digitising Informal Savings Mechanisms’ project will run for three years. Through the project, TPB plans to create financial linkages with 300,000 new customers by the year 2020,” said Mr Moshingi. The CEO further said TPB was the first bank in Tanzania to introduce mass-market mobile banking under the name TPB POPOTE. It has now created a group mobile platform that allows groups to save, take loans and make contributions to their social funds, all via their mobile phones. Mr Moshingi said Tanzanians with very low and erratic incomes in rural and peri-urban areas face the main known challenge of proximity to a financial service provider. TPB’s solution allows a group and individual to use technology and save digitally, making it safer, cheaper as well as more convenient and more transparent. TPB plans to take an even more central role in promoting financial inclusion and fostering an environment that will improve the socio-economic well-being of every Tanzanian. The SatF’s Programme Manager, Mr Steve Peachey said his organisation is in partnership with MasterCard Foundation and Oxford Policy Management to improve the financial inclusion of low-income individuals and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. TPB is the first partner institution that the organisation (SatF), will be working with in Tanzania, Ghana and Zambia, he said. “What attracted SatF to partner with TPB is the boldness of its initiative and the way it wants to help individuals create their own groups with financial linkage built in from the start,” Mr Peachey said.

Water as a perennial problem in the city of Dar es Salaam

Water has become a social problem in many places in Tanzania and the government has been trying all it can in order to ward off the impediment that con trains the development of water sector in the country. Despite this effort, the government has also been calling upon the engagement of the private stakeholders in the fight in order to get the lasting solution to the problem which by no means is quite negligible whatsoever as far as its use is concerned. In view of this however, THE government has urged the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) and Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Corporation (DAWASCO) to work closely with other stakeholders in an effort to end water shortages in the region. The call was made recently by the Deputy Minister of Water and Irrigation, Jumaa Aweso, in Kigamboni District during his tour of Dar es Salaam Region to inspect implementation of water projects and accessibility of water to city residents. The Deputy Minister asked Dawasa and Dawasco to work closely with municipal and district councils in the region and other water stakeholders so as to ensure they achieve their target of ending the city water blues. According to Dawasa, currently, 75 per cent of Dar es Salaam residents are connected to formal water network while the rest are not connected to the network and lack access to safe and clean water. Some areas which have been mentioned as facing acute problem of access to clean and safe water include the newly formed district of Kigamboni and Segerea constituency which lacks water infrastructure. However, Dawasa and Dawasco are working on the problem so as to enable the areas be connected and have water access by introducing various projects in the areas, to ensure the government’s target of reaching 95 per cent of Tanzanians have access to clean and safe water is achieved. In Kigamboni District, Dawasa are conducting several projects including drilling 20 boreholes and erecting water tanks in the first phase to be followed with infrastructure such as pipes from the source to customers. Dawasa Deputy Director of Technical Services Modester Mushi disclosed that in an effort to tackle the problem in Kigamboni District, the authority is currently conducting projects at Vijibweni and Kimbiji in Kisarawe II Ward where they are drilling 12 deep wells. Eleven of them are already completed and have the capacity of providing 250,000 to 500,000 litres per day. However, she unveiled that the second phase of the project which involves the erection of infrastructure such as pipes is yet to start due to lack of funds. But, Dawasa is working around the clock to get the funds to complete the project through soft loan from Exim Bank of China, which they are expecting to get. Deputy Minister Aweso commended the good job by Dawasa for implementing various water projects in the district in an effort to solve the district water blues for good and urged them to ensure the projects are completed in time. He went on to advise Dawasa to see how they can start using the 11 completed wells to reduce water crisis in Kigamboni District.