Most development projects at advanced stages – Govt

 Daily News reporter

DODOMA: THE government has said the ongoing flagship projects and programmes, which are aimed at stimulating economy, improving people’s

welfare and human capital development in various parts of the country have reached at advanced stages.

This was unveiled by the Minister of State, President’s Office (Planning and Investment) Prof Kitila Mkumbo, when presenting the evaluation of the National Development Plan for 2023/24 in Dodoma on Monday.

He said the government has continued with the implementation of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project whereby the 300- kilometre Dar es Salaam to Morogoro stretch has reached 98.84 per cent.

The 422 kilometers MorogoroMakutopora stretch has reached 96.35 per cent and the Mwanza-Isaka covering 341 kilometers has registered 52.69 per cent.

The construction of two 88U locomotive engines for the main railway line and seven 64XX locomotives type have reached 62 per cent and the implementation of the 210 Meter gauge Railway (MGR) Kaliua-Mpanda has reached 10.53 per cent.

The construction of KigongoBusisi Bridge in Mwanza Region with its 1.66 kilometers connecting roads has reached 80.1 per cent.

During this period, the government continued to execute the projects aimed at improving aviation services, where Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) received one airplane Boeing 737-9 Max and paid in part the amount for the Boeing 737 Max 9, Boeing 787-8 and Boeing 737-7.

On road the improvement and expansion projects, 115.97 kilometers tarmac roads and 3,080.87 kilometers gravel roads have been completed.

Also, 21 bridges, 17 culverts and 51,309.62 meters drainage systems completed. He said the government completed the process of getting investors to invest, develop and operate the Dar es Salam port.

In June last year, the parliament approved the Intergovernmental Agreement between the government of Tanzania and the Emirates of Dubai and in October three agreements were signed by the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) and DP World to operate berths 0-3 and 4-7.

With the signing of the agreements, the government is expecting huge achievements will be achieved at Dar port due to huge investments, development and management.

On the implementation of port projects, the government continued with the dredging project at the Dar es Salaam port to expand the main port entrance to about 15.5 meters depth whose implementation has reached 99.9 per cent.

The completion of the improvement of Tanga port that included dredging of the water depth from 3 meters to 13 meters have strengthened and improved berths no 1-2 with 450 meters length.

Also, the completion of the 15.5 kilometers concrete road construction from Morogoro road at Vigwaza to Kwala area is encouraging.

He said the government continued to implement the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project (2115 Megawatts) that has reached 96.9 per cent.

And last month, 235 megawatts were entered into the national grid. The implementation of this project has helped to increase electricity generation to 1,911.35 megawatts from 1,676.35 megawatts compared to 4,915 megawatts target by 2025.

“We commend President Samia Suluhu Hassan for the exemplary leadership that has contributed greatly to the successful implementation of the power project,” he said.

He also hailed Deputy Prime Minister Dr Dotto Biteko, who is also the Energy Minister as well as related ministries for ensuring that the project becomes a success.

On the implementation of information and communication technology projects, the Tanzanian National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) has connected 21 districts equivalent to 91 per cent out of 23 districts.

To connect Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through Lake Tanganyika, to continue with 1,600 kilometers (87 per cent), to connect 50 institutions (25 per cent) as well as continue to residential address registration where 12,385,956 completed.

To increase agriculture productivity, the government continued to improve the availability of farm inputs through subsidiary plan to farmers including seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and farm inputs.

During the period 58,808.61 tonnes of quality seeds were distributed to farmers, 797,871 tonnes of fertilisers including 418,942 that were sold to 3,751,688 farmers in subsidised price in 26 regions.

This initiative helped in increasing food production to 20,402,014 tonnes in 2022/2023 compared to 17,148,290 in 2021/2022 financial year.

The government continued with the construction of 22 irrigation schemes that has reached 76 per cent and rehabilitation of 21 irrigation schemes (reached 70 per cent) and construction of 11 dams (reached 70 per cent).

Due to this project, the irrigated land has increased to 800,000 hectares by last year compared to 300,000 hectares in 2019/20.

The government continued with the construction of 28 warehouses having capacity to store 33,000 tonnes in Ruvuma Region that have reached 75 per cent.

Also, the government has continued to construct warehouses in seven National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) zones with capacity to store 501,000 tonnes (its implementation reached 85 per cent).

On the implementation of Building Better Tomorrow –BBT, 999,706.6 hectares of land in 10 regions have been identified and three farms with 64,552 hectares are being developed.

On this project, 268 youth were trained on commercial farming and were given 365.8 hectares of sunflower farms.

On livestock keeping, the government continued with the implementation of project aimed at adding value to livestock and fish products by constructing virus laboratory to produce 13 vaccines for fighting various diseases.

The implementation of this project has reached 20 per cent. A total of 24,114,334 animals have been vaccinated including 2,300 cow