The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Samuel Kamndaya
9 July 2009
Dodoma — The Government said yesterday it will employ 7,000 policemen and other personnel in the security and rescue operations sections ready for the next year's General Election.
The jobs, to be offered by the Home Affairs ministry in three financial years starting 2008/09 are meant to help the government in ensuring security during the forthcoming general elections.
The new jobs will also help to reduce the widening police-civilian ratio, Lawrence Masha, the minister for Home Affairs, told the Parliament yesterday as he was tabling his Budget Speech.
"Preparations for implementing a strategy of ensuring security during the 2009 local government elections and the 2010 general elections started during financial year 2008/09 we will employ 7,000 new policemen during the preparation period," he said.
Requesting parliament to debate and endorse Sh395.346billion for his ministry during the financial year 2009/2010, Mr Masha said his ministry will also purchase equipment to help in curbing chaos during the election period.
In his address to the National Assembly last year, Mr Masha said some 1,355 people would be employed in 2008/09.
Tanzania is one of the countries with the worst police-civilian ratio.
Currently, every policeman serves 1,300 people in the country against the internationally accepted ratio of one policeman for every 450 civilians. In Kenya, the one policeman handles 821.
Mr Masha said this meant that some areas were being left without police service.
During the current financial year, some 600 prison warders, some 100 people will be employed as probation officers to fill vacant positions in the police force's department Community Services department as some 42 are earmarked for employment in the Fire Brigade department.
Meanwhile, pilot projects for the National Identification cards (IDs) are to start during the current financial year, the Home Affairs minister has said.
Mr Lawrence Masha told the National Assembly yesterday that the government is currently finalising modalities to contract a firm which will undertake the project.
"Preparations are underway to float a tender to choose a contractor to undertake the project the pilot projects are scheduled to start during financial year 2009/10," Mr Masha said.
He said, with initiation of the National Identification Authority (Nida) over two years ago, a lot of background work to the project has been accomplished.
"I want to assure Tanzanians through the Parliament that the National ID project will be implemented in accordance with available laws and laid down procedures and that there will neither be foul play nor prejudice in the process," said Masha.
He named some of the benefits of ID cards as helping to protect people from identity fraud and theft. They help to tackle illegal employment and immigration abuse.
With the use of smart card technology, the much-awaited IDs will also help to prevent use of false and multiple identities by criminals and those involved in terrorist activity, hence they help to enhance national security.
Initial plans indicate that the project, to be closely monitored by Nida, will also involve such other bodies as the police, immigration, the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (Rita), among many others.
But in response, the opposition spokesman for the home affairs ministry, Mr Ibrahim Mohammed Sanya criticised the government for delaying the project.
"Since 2006, the government is only telling us folktales about the project. This is unfair," he said.
Mr Sanya said the government had no reason of establishing Nida, noting that Rita would be an ideal agency to undertake the project.
"If we are serious about reducing unnecessary costs, then it is important to either we merge the activities of Nida and Rita or completely erase one. This is because none of the two can work without the other," he said.
He said in countries of Singapore, India, South Korea and Malaysia where National IDs have been in place for many years, it is institutions similar to Rita that handle the whole system.
Most MPs contributing to Mr Masha's 2009/10 budget proposals noted with concern that policemen face a lot of hardships in their daily undertakings.
They decried the tendency of keeping a policeman at one station for a long time while those that are being transferred stay for months without having their transferring costs paid.
"If you conduct a study, you will establish that some policemen are ready to be transferred at their own costs this indicates that things are not going well," said the Gando MP, Khalifa Suleiman Khalifa.
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