The new president of Tanzania appears to be taking a new scientific approach to combating the coronavirus pandemic.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Tuesday she would set up a technical committee to advise her on the extent of COVID-19 infections in the country in eastern Africa and how to respond to the pandemic.
COVID-19 is ‘not something we should keep quiet about or completely refuse or accept without conducting a scientific investigation,’ Hassan said in Swahili.
We will do medical research that will tell us the extent of the problem and we can advise on what the world recommends, as well as our own expertise, ‘she said.
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Hassan, made the remarks broadcast live after cursing key government officials in a hall in State House, the president’s official residence, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. There were more than 100 top government officials present, most of whom did not wear face masks nor distance themselves from each other.
Hassan’s comments are a dramatic reversal of the policies of her predecessor, the late President John Magufuli, who was one of Africa’s leading COVID-19 deniers. He claims in June last year that Tanzania got rid of COVID-19 through three days of national prayer. He rejects scientific approaches to preventing and treating the disease. He discouraged the use of face masks and instead promoted prayer, physical fitness and herbal remedies.
Magufuli’s government has fired officials who have given other opinions and some have been arrested.
FILE – On this Tuesday, March 16, 2021, file photo, the President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, speaks during a tour of the Tanga region in Tanzania. (AP photo / file)
Hassan was in her second term as vice president when Magufuli fell out of public view in late February. The populist president was not seen in public for 19 days, prompting speculation that he was ill with COVID-19. Hassan announced Magufuli’s death on March 17, saying it was due to heart failure.
She made history when she was sworn in as the first women president of Tanzania on March 19.
Tanzania’s opposition leaders claim that Magufuli, 61, died of COVID-19, the disease he was undermining.
Magufuli warned Tanzanians against getting vaccinated against the disease. He rather promoted trade and international tourism, eager to avoid the economic pain of neighboring countries that closed and imposed curfews and limited international travel. He refused to ban public gatherings.
In her speech to the country on Tuesday, Hassan also ordered that the media houses that were closed during her predecessor’s government be reopened. She also urged local officials to encourage freedom of expression to allow members of the public to voice their grievances without being intimidated.
“I hear some media, mobile televisions are banned. I want the media to be allowed, but according to the laws of this country. It is not necessary to give them the pleasure of saying that we are suppressing freedom of the press,” he said. Hassan said. .
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Rights groups have said that Tanzania’s government has intensified censorship since 2015 by banning or suspending at least six newspapers for content that is considered critical. It contains Tanzania’s largest English-language daily, The Citizen.
FILE – In this file photo of Saturday, July 11, 2015, the then Minister of Public Works and Presidential candidate of Tanzania, John Magufuli, speaks during an internal party poll to decide the ruling candidate of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, who they later elected to him, in Dodoma, Tanzania. (AP Photo / Khalfan Said, file)
Last year, Magufuli’s government suspended a newspaper linked to one of the country’s leading opposition politicians, Freeman Mbowe.
The rights said the authorities used the Cybercrime Act of 2015 to prosecute journalists and activists for social media.
The Tanzanian government also controls independent research and public access to independent statistical information through the 2015 legislation, which denies citizens alternative sources of independent verified information, the reports say.