Tanzania kickstarts implementation of APRM report
By Shout-Africa Correspondent, Dar es Salaam – The government of Tanzania has started addressing some of the governance issues raised by its people through the African Union governance assessment tool-the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
The information was revealed in Dar es Salaam (Wednesday) by the APRM Tanzania Head of Media and Communications, Mr. Hassan Abbas during a press briefing.
Mr. Abbas told the media that although the official launch of the Report has been scheduled for October this year where the report will be launched by one of the top government leaders and distributed to the public, the government of Tanzania has advanced its political will to the process.
“The initial review of governance in Tanzania under the auspices of the APRM was completed in January, 2013 when His Excellence President Jakaya Kikwete tabled the report for consideration before his peers-the rest of APRM Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“Considering the value of the people’s opinion the government has moved so fast to start implementing the National Programme of Action (NPoA) which outlines how the government would address the identified governance gaps,” he said.
He outlined to areas that the government has started working on to include incorporating all constitutional issues that the people had raised on the draft constitution that is being discussed now.
“You are all aware that the constitution review is on in our country so all APRM issues concerning constitutional items were submitted to the Review Commission and we have commendably noted that most of the issued have been incorporated in the first draft, “he said adding that the government has also included some other APRM issues in the national budget for 2013/14.
APRM was launched in 2003 to assess governance among African Union member states with the aim of fostering accelerated development in political and democracy areas; economic management, corporate governance and socio-economic development.
Tanzania joined the Mechanism in 2004, the National Assembly ratified the process to start in the country in 2005 and national independent structures were established in 2007. The governance reviews under APRM are repeated after every four years.
