Chart of the week #21: What happened to election turnout between 2000 and 2010?
84% of registered voters voted in 2000, just 42% in 2010. That’s an incredibly fast drop-off. So what happened? Well, I don’t think anyone really has the answer. If you look at the more detailed...
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The cat man, the politicians and the mind games
Manyaunyau, from Facebook Dr Manyaunyau is a well-known “traditional healer”, based in Dar es Salaam. His name derives from an informal Swahili word for cat – “nyau”, (from the noise it makes) – and he...
View ArticleChart of the week #22: Trying to explain the low turnout
Last week, I drew attention to the extremely low turnout figures recorded at the Tanzanian 2010 presidential election. This week, I thought I would look at whether these turnout figures vary between...
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Does the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) apply to Tanzanian...
Twaweza published its first set of IATI data last week. By doing so, Twaweza joined 276 other organisations sharing data on their work in a common standard. And since doing so, I’ve been asked several...
View ArticleWhat have you missed since June?
If you’ve signed up to receive this blog by email (as you can do using the link on the right), then you may well have missed several posts over the past few months. I shifted to a new web-host at the...
View ArticleScotland and Zanzibar, more union questions
Tanzania’s more internationally-minded political thinkers watched Scotland’s Independence Referendum last week with much interest. The question on everyone’s lips was this: what does the decision made...
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Apparently everyone wants transparency in Tanzania’s gas contracts. Lets get...
Last weekend, Statoil management finally broke their silence on their leaked contract for gas production in Tanzania. In an interview with The Citizen newspaper, Statoil’s Country Manager for Tanzania,...
View ArticleChart of the week #24: Attacks on people with albinism across Africa
Witchcraft-related attacks on people with albinism are big news in Tanzania, and have been for some years. Back in 2008, Vicky Ntetema, then working for the BBC, first went undercover to investigate,...
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Chart of the week #25: Government Secrecy in an Information Age
The Media Institute of Southern Africa conducts an annual exercise to review access to information from different government ministries and agencies. The latest report, Government Secrecy in an...
View ArticleHow (un)equal is East Africa? And does it matter?
Does inequality matter? What are the effects of wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few individuals? Well, if you believe some of the world’s most respected economists – people like Thomas...
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Chart of the week #26: Corruption is seen as a “very big problem” by more...
Pew Global Research have just published some new data from their Global Attitudes Survey, collected in early 2014. There were seven African countries among the sample, including Tanzania. Let me start...
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Chart of the week #28: If elections were held today, who would you vote for?
The latest Sauti za Wananchi survey brief was launched earlier today, on politics. It covers a range of topics, and I highly recommend reading the whole brief. But Angela Ambroz has put together this...
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Is there a contractual obstacle preventing TPDC from providing gas contracts...
From The Citizen, 7/11/14 Prof Sospeter Muhongo, Tanzania’s Minister of Energy and Minerals, speaking in parliament last week, said that there was no way his ministry would submit gas contracts to the...
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Telling the Escrow / IPTL story through cartoons: Are we going to see...
It could be a very big day for Tanzania today. The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, under the determined leadership of its chair, Zitto Kabwe, promises to present its findings on the IPTL /...
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What else could the Tegeta-Escrow (IPTL) money pay for?
Mwananchi newspaper had a nice bit of data journalism this morning. What else could the Tshs 306bn Tegeta-Escrow money pay for? I’ve turned their figures into a slideshow: Click to view slideshow....
View ArticleGuest post: Miss Umeme 2014 scandal unfolds!
This is a guest post by Boyce Sarokin. On 8th November, Ms Sitti Mtemvu handed in her Miss Tanzania 2014 crown when allegations on social media that she had forged her birth certificate to qualify for...
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Tanzania bans another newspaper
The Citizen, 27/01/15 Once again, the Tanzanian government has banned a newspaper. In late 2013, Mtanzania was suspended for 90 days and Mwananchi for 14. In June 2012 it was MwanaHalisi, which remains...
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It really is “nothing but witchcraft” in Sani newspaper
“Uchawi Mtupu” (“Nothing but witchcraft”) – Sani 24/1/15 I spotted this newspaper headline last Saturday. “Urais Mwaka 2015: Uchawi Mtupu”, which roughly translates as “2015 Presidency: Nothing but...
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On police brutality and the need for journalists to have “risk insurance”
Presidents Gauck and Kikwete, photo from Deutsche Welle I have several short extracts from today’s media for you. First, from Deutche Welle, quoting German President Joachim Gauck, who is visiting...
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Public Seminar – Tanzania: A new constitution? – London, 28/2/2015
Graphic from The East African The Britain-Tanzania Society and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) are organising what promises to be a fascinating seminar on the proposed new...
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