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Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has appointed a politician fired for criticizing his predecessor as energy minister during a cabinet reshuffle that also included the appointment of the country’s first female defense minister.
Former deputy environment minister January Makamba was sacked from government in 2019 and forced to apologize to then-president John Magufuli, who died suddenly in March this year.
But in a reshuffle announced Monday night, Hassan, who broke with some of his predecessor’s policies, hailed the 47-year-old’s return to government and appointed him to head the strategically important ministry. Energy.
Magufuli had accused Makamba of criticizing him in telephone conversations with other members of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and threatened to expel him unless he apologized.
Magufuli, nicknamed “the bulldozer” for his authoritarian style, made no secret of the fact that he was listening to the telephone conversations of members of his government.
Makamba, whose father is a former secretary general of the CCM, challenged Magufuli for the party’s presidential nomination in 2015 and lost.
The reshuffle, which also saw Stergomena Tax appointed defense minister, the first woman to hold the post, came as Hassan seeks to end his predecessor’s skeptical policies towards Covid by launching the Tanzania’s first vaccination campaign in July.
Although some have hoped that Hassan would usher in a new era of political freedom after the increasingly autocratic regime of Magufuli, the arrest of opposition leader Freeman Mbowe has raised fears for the future of democracy in this country of ‘East Africa.
Mbowe was arrested in July and is on trial on terrorism charges, which his Chadema party describes as a politically motivated effort to crush dissent.
The Department of Energy is currently overseeing the construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam project in the Selous Game Reserve and is strategically vital for Tanzania, which has significant reserves of natural gas.
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