Tanzania: Ship registration put on ice

By DAILY NEWS Reporter

PRESIDENT John Magufuli has suspended the registration of new ships until further notice, barely a day after Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced deregistration of two Tanzania-flagged ships that the Dutch and Greek authorities recently reported to have found with drugs and explosives on board.

The Head of State issued the directive at the Julius Nyerere Convention Centre (JNCC) when addressing employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, where he tasked the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, Prof Makame Mbarawa and his Zanzibar counterpart, Ambassador Ali Abeid Karume, to fully implement the directive.
His directive aims at putting fresh measures in place to make a thorough follow-up on the reports that revealed the seizure of illicit drugs aboard the Tanzanian flagged ships that put the number of vessels to five. Apart from banning fresh registration of vessels, Dr Magufuli tasked the two ministers and security organs to launch a thorough investigation on all the 470 registered vessels in the country.
The President further directed the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga, to implement the directives and make sure that the country’s image was not tarnished outside the country.
“You should probe all the seized five Tanzanian flagged vessels and 470 others registered and operating in the country, because we cannot sit and see the image of our country being tarnished simply because of few people who are working on their own interests,’’ he insisted.
Dr Magufuli further directed his subordinates to ensure that all the directives that were issued by the Vice-President on Thursday were fully implemented. In her directives, the VP ordered the review and verification of all vessels with Tanzanian registration.