The immediate-past President of Tanzania, Dr John Magufuli. Photo | FILE
Arusha. In early May 1996, John Pombe Magufuli was travelling to his home town of Chato from
Mwanza, one of his numerous trips.He made a brief stop at Sengerema, probably for some bites and refreshments at a road side restaurant.
We found him almost through’ but he remained seated. Clients kept entering the facility or settling their bills at the often crowded counter.
This writer, who was in another company, did not recognize him. It was only months after the 1995 General Election which came with a crop of new leaders.
After our departure to Ngara, discussions started as to who that person was. After all, he appeared to be no ordinary citizen.
An NGO official from Ngara who was familiar with the local politics in the area said the ‘person’ was the new MP for Biharamulo East.
“He is the new ‘Mbunge’ and now a deputy minister,” he said. In those days, the constituency - later renamed Chato - and the entire Biharamulo, were in Kagera Region.
At the restaurant, he sat alone, but appeared quite observant. Sengerema was then a dusty little town midway between Mwanza and Geita.
In those days, Mr Magufuli cut the image of a heavily-bearded person. His latter day antics were not known as he had just landed a ministerial Cabinet post.
One could easily guess why he took time to observe what was going from the eating joint. In those days, road transport along those routes was a nightmare because of poor road conditions and risk of ambushes by robbers.
The roads linking Mwanza and the entire Lake Zone - except Mara - were not paved, and were full of potholes.
This was also the case for the Mwanza-Chato road then. This is in sharp contrast to the impressive motor riders escorting his body to his home on tarmac road this week.
There were no tarmac roads in his then-Kagera Region - or in rural Shinyanga, Simiyu and Geita.
Having landed in the Works ministry as a deputy minister, Magufuli knew the challenges ahead of him as the road networks were poor.
That zone - Sengerema, Geita, Chato, Biharamulo and adjacent districts in Shinyanga - was not as much ‘developed,’ complete with shiny structures as is the case today.
Magufuli’s trip to Chato early in May 1996 was only days before the sinking of MV Bukoba near Mwanza port in which nearly 1,000 people perished. The fact that so many people were killed was another indication of serious challenges facing the country’s transport sector.
He knew vessels’ overcrowding was partly due to the fact that the road transport between Bukoba and the entire Kagera Region was poor.
As the deputy minister, he was not much on the radar, as greater responsibilities lay in the hands of the-then minister, Anna Abdallah.
But JPM - as he was popularly known - came into the limelight from year-2000 when he took over the Works portfolio, spitting fire when necessary. It was the time when most of the major road projects in the country’s history under the donor-funded Integrated Road Project (IRP) were launched. In 2002, he was challenged by members of Parliament as to why implementation of road projects was often delayed.
His response was intriguing. Construction of tarmac roads was no easy job - and should not be equated to preparing a local brew!
Tarmac roads construction has to be preceded by feasibility studies on their (roads) economic viability, detailed soil surveys and structural designs by the experts, he pontificated.
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