Govt creates new region, 6 districts

Dodoma. Seven lucrative jobs in the Civil Service are up for grabs following the creation of a new region and six districts as announced by Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda.

Moving a motion to adjourn the Parliament yesterday, the PM said Songwe which was previously under Mbeya Region, now becomes a region.

The new districts, according to him are Tanganyika, Ubungo, Kigamboni, Songwe, Kibiti and Malinyi. This means, Dar es Salaam Region which had only three districts will now have five after introducing Kigamboni and Ubungo districts.

Mr Pinda said the new region and districts would be made official in a government gazette, to be released soon.

After the gazette, President Jakaya Kikwete is expected to appoint a new regional commissioner for Songwe Region and six district commissioners for Tanganyika, Ubungo, Kigamboni, Songwe, Kibiti and Malinyi districts respectively.

Mr Pinda also named several other district councils that will be established and another 586 wards saying it was geared at strengthening devolution.

In his speech on the last day of the tenth Parliament yesterday, Mr Pinda took time to commend the House Speaker, Anne Makinda, for her stance to continue with meetings after the opposition MPs quit Parliament in protest of the highly contested controversial bills on oil and gas.

“The bills were important for the protection of the country’s natural resources and interests of the country,’’ he said.

On the ongoing registration of voters countrywide through Biometric Voter Registration (BVR), Mr Pinda said in 13 regions were the exercise has been accomplished the National Electoral Commission had exceeded its target’

He said until now, more than 11.2 million eligible voters had been listed, out of 24 million voters who are expected to be registered. The premier said before August, the countrywide voter listing exercise will have been accomplished and that the preliminary voter registry would be availed to the public for verification.

Mr Pinda also spoke about the country’s second phase of the development plan that intends to make Tanzania a middle income economy country.

He said plans were afoot to establish an Agro-processing industry, medium-term technology industries as well as development of the country’s natural resources, among others.