AS the exploration of the natural gas is currently taking its stage in southern regions of Mtwara and Lindi in the country respectively, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals is yet to prepare a national policy that would guide its production when drilling takes off, it has been disclosed. In view of this, the former Prime Minister and a retired army Captain, Edward Ngoyai Lowasa has called on the government to prepare a comprehensive national policy which would guide the excavation work before it enters into contract with the prospective drilling firms. He made the call recently in Dar es Salaam when analyzing the economy of the natural gas currently under exploration and its benefits to the nation with a view to alleviate poverty in an interview with Independent Television (ITV) station. This was during the 45 minutes talk show program which is being prepared by a TV presenter Selemeni Semunyu and aired on every Monday. During the interview, Lowasa stressed the need of having such a national policy which he said will make Tanzania to benefit with the gas exploration whose activities would provide employment for loitering youths, but has wondered as to why the government is slow and has yet prepared any. However, he has suggested that, the government should currently concentrate with the exploration of a single segment among several ones already discovered to be rich with the natural gas and therefore should not rush to other segments. Lowasa is on the view of the fact that, unless the government has prepared its policy plan and make use of the locally trained engineers on gas issues such as University graduates to work effectively for the benefit of the nation. “Let us not make our underground natural wealth to be a curse, but rather a blessing” he said adding that, as long as we have already discovered it within our territorial borders, it’s now the obligation of the government to work on a national policy for guidance as this would make huge benefit from which a nation will get out of poverty to a certain extent.
Former Tanzania's Prime Minister Edward Lowasa
Lowasa used the words curse and blessings in response of the fact that, the government should put a guideline as a policy and enact a law if possible in order to ensure strict supervision on the work during the drilling process that would ensure profits, but it would get a curse if there would be poor supervision that would result into losses. In view of this, he has kindly asked the government to effectively supervise such a blessing by way of preparing a national policy which according to him, will undertake all risks involved during extraction , and apart from that people would be in a position to know the losses and profit gains. In addition to that, the policies should be made to work in favour of future Tanzanians. He stressed his point and gave an example by quoting the father of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who forbade the extraction processes of the already discovered mineral deposits such as gold in the country in early 1960s with a common excuse that Tanzanians were not ready to supervise themselves for lack of poor technology. To be safer, he has also urged the government to institute a special Act that would ensure the management of its underground natural resources in the country just like the same way Ugandan government has done which he said have their own law that defend and stand for the management resources especially those of the natural gas. Among other things, the former premier also discussed matters related to education policy at ward levels, and how the policy should help to modernize agriculture in the country. His views were focused mainly on the developmental aspects so as to save the nation from its extreme abject poverty. One reason for this state of affairs is that, small scale farmers in the country are still using hand hoe and have no time for fertilizer or the use of insecticides and the result of which has been invariably poor yields resulting into low productivity. He said that, in future the policy might end up into poor implementation as most small scale farmers who cover the majority of rural population in the country are not well educated or trained on various modern use of agricultural inputs, use of pesticides and other applications. Such discrepancies results into lower agricultural yields. To ensure good agricultural yields under the government policy of ‘Kilimo Kwanza’, meaning agriculture first, the government has to educate small scale farmers on the basic use of agro-products and how to drive technological mechanism in order to achieve its success. Otherwise, he said that, the policy will remain dormant. Contrary to this, Lowasa noted that, the government lays its initiatives on modern farming that involves using big tractors which requires heavy investment capital and high technological move which does not match with the little knowledge most farmers in the country have. In order to bring success the government should inject an aspect of education into Kilimo Kwanza policy, he said giving an example of Malaysia and Indonesia countries which he visited during his tenure in his capacity as a Prime Minster, he gained experience and learned that, the two countries had developed agriculturally because they had some forms of education introduced to their small scale farmers.
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