Schools with desk shortages given ultimatum

FATMA ABDU

THE Minister of State in the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government), Mr George Simbachawene, has directed all regions in the country which still have shortage of school desks to complete the directive by January next year.

Mr Simbachawene made the remarks during a brief ceremony of handing over 3,500 desks donated by National Microfinance Bank (NMB) held in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

He said that the donation is part of NMB’s 1.5 billion commitment they made in 2014 to support the government’s initiative to improve learning environment in schools. “This support will help to reduce the problem of shortage of desks to our primary and secondary students across the country.

The desks will be distributed to 71 schools across the country and the government urging other stakeholders to make their commitment to support this initiative,” Mr Simbachawene said.

The minister mentioned some regions that still have shortage of desks as Geita, Mwanza, Kigoma, Mara, Rukwa, Simiyu and Dodoma.

According to Mr Simbachawene, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara, Lindi, Arusha, Iringa, Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Manyara, Njombe, Coast, Ruvuma, Shinyanga, Singida and Tabora are the only regions that completed the directive made by the president of having enough desks to primary and secondary schools.

“The few regions that remain have a slight shortage of desks to complete the directive, and I know they can accomplish this within a short time.

But we insist on them to make sure they are complete before January in order to go with the fifth phase government’s speed,” he explained. He also thanked NMB for their valuable support as it will help meet the challenges facing schools countrywide.

“This contribution is enormous for us, we are very grateful to see the efforts of the government are being supported.

I thank other stakeholders, and urge them to continue supporting the education sector, which is very important in our future development,” he added.

On her part, the NMB Managing Director, Ineke Bussemaker, said that the school desks are part of their corporate social responsibility initiative as the number one bank in Tanzania that put communities first by sharing part of the profit they get through supporting communities.

“Today we are handing over 3500 primary and secondary school desks to the government, this is part of the promise we made in the last quarter of 2014 that we will procure over 15,000 school desks worth 1.5 billion as our contribution to improving learning environment to schools in a period of five years,” Ms Bussemaker said.

Adding, “With this handover today, we are confident to say that for 2016 only we have procured over 10, 000 school desks worth 900ml/-. We also plan to hand over computers before the end of this year to support schools with Information Communication Technology (ICT) subjects.