Politics

Tanzania becomes fourth African country to raise minimum wage after Morocco, Kenya, Zanzibar

Published

2 years ago

May 15, 2022

Tanzania has become the fourth African country in the last three weeks to raise the minimum wage of public servants after Morocco, Kenya and Zanzibar announced similar increases.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan who announced the wage increase on Saturday, said parliament decided on a wage increase of 23.3%, while also increasing the salaries of government workers for the first time since 2016.

“The salary increment was approved considering the country’s gross domestic product, domestic revenue and developments in both the local and global economies,” a statement from the President’s office said.

The minumum wage increase is a sharp departure from the policies of her late predecessor, John Magufuli, whose government was dogged by protests about high cost of living in the country.

Since coming to power last year following the death of Magufuli, Hassan has pursued a different path and has attempted to break with some of Magufuli’s policies by reaching out to the opposition and reversing most of his policies which were deemed to be anti-people.

Magufuli had bluntly refused to review wages following his election in October 2015, rather pursuing infrastructural plans by developing ports and railways and reviving the national airline.

By 2020, Tanzania’s economy had slowed to an all time low of 4.8%, barely edging upward to 4.9% the following year, as COVID-19 travel restrictions battered the tourism sector which is a key earner in the East African country.

During the Labour Day celebration on May 1, trade unions and civil servants led demonstrations in Tanzania’s capital Dodoma calling for an increase in wages, with many holding up placards saying: “Better salaries and benefits for workers is our demand.”

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

22 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.