Tanzania closer to ratifying weapons agreement

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is at an advanced stage of ratifying a resolution by the United Nation’s (UN) Security Council, which aims at banning production and use of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction.

The country signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction in 1972, but it has not ratified it since then. Speaking in Dar es Salaam yesterday during a Regional Africa Parliamentary Workshop, the chairman of the parliamentarians for Global Action in Tanzania Mr Jasson Rweikiza said the country was at the advanced stage where the ratification of the convection was already scheduled to be debated by the National Assembly this month.

Parliamentarians for Global Action is a non-profit, non-partisan international network of committed legislators, which informs and mobilizes legislators in all regions of the world to advocate human rights and the rule of law, democracy, human security, non-discrimination, and gender equality.

“Right now the issue is being discussed at the Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee (IMTC) before it is handed over to the cabinet and ultimately, to the parliament for ratification,” he said.

Tanzania is one of the UN’s six member states that have not yet ratified the Biological Weapon Convection despite signing it.

Ten other UN member states have neither signed nor ratified it.

According to the permanent secretary in the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Prof Adolf Mkenda, the issue of weapons of mass destruction is not only an issue of life and death, but it threatens the existence of the market.

“Ratifying the convention represents the first possible step towards achievement of the agreement,” he said.