Power from Jet Engines?! I don't believe it.

I've been hearing so many stories about this to the point I'm starting to believe none is the truth. No one in their right mind could pull this stunt.

http://www.africa-interactive.net/index.php?PageID=2003

25 October 2006, by PowerNell. The East African comes with a critical analysis on the cabinet reshuffle of president Kikwete. In this article it is said, amongst others, that Richmond Development sold Tanesco "an unserviceable second-hand Boeing 707 engines purporting to be new power equipment" (The East African, 23 October, 2006). It gets crazier by the day.

Richmond linked to president?

Let me give you the full quote: "Richmond, it turned out, was after all briefcase outfit owned by Tanzanians who call the shots at State House. Initial investigations link Richmond Development (…) to an Arusha-based tycoon. He is said to have bankrolled Kikwete's presidential campaigns when his party appeared to be wavering. It also emerged the directors of the briefcase company had sold to the state-owned Tanzania Electric Supply Company's (Tanesco) an unserviceable second-hand Boeing 707 engines purporting to be new power equipment."

Richmond generators are arrived in the country

Other news is that the Richmond generators have arrived in the country. This raises many questions, and no one can formulate them better than Makwaia wa Kuhenga, a senior journalist of The Citizen. I quote: "Last weekend suddenly all the big television houses had deployed their cameramen to record the arrival of the long awaited generators from a seemingly non-existent US based company, Richmond Development Inc.
As I watched the event unfold on prime time news Saturday night over the weekend, I had mixed feelings of both disgust and contempt for my own profession. Contemptuous because I had the feel that someone somewhere was pulling a trick in news management; trying to cool down public tempers over the whole Richmond furore or perhaps to cool down public opinion that the company in question was around and very much in place and my collegues in the electronic media were consciously agreeing to be manipulated!
Disgusted because media people sometimes have no choice but to be there to record an event even though they may know that some powerful individuals are manipulating them. (…)This scenario made my mind even more curious: so the company exists after all? (…) How good are the machines anyway? Who has checked them and certified them as up to the required standard? Has the state made any upfront payment? How much?" (Source: The Citizen, 23 October, 2006).

See for the complete analysis: The East African, Ernest Mpinganjira, October 23, 2006: Kikwete Lives in Utopian World As Tanzanians Wallow in Problems

Accidental maturing of reproductive organs?

Sounds like a miracle that an eight-year-old conceived and actually gave birth to a healthy baby.

People have come up in arms that whatever man did this should be done this or that.

I tend to look at it differently though: There is that mammalian instinct in all humans, and there is something like female species of homo sapiens being on heat and seeking a male using whatever means. That's quite natural: we've all been seeing them on National Geographic movies, isn't it?

That could have been the case here, something went wrong with life clock and gave her a reproductive maturity early on--not much different from someone going grey in their early teens: life clock ran amok.

Congo Democratic Republic

Congo DR recently held a run-off elections for top office. Incumbent Kabila was being challenged by Bemba, who had been his Vice-President. The first round of elections had Bemba trailing Kabila at a distance, but constitution dictated that the winner must obtain 50 pc of the ballots cast. Therefore run-off.

While voting was done and Electral commission was working frantically to complete the counting job and announce the winner, Bemba had been interviewed by prominent media houses and said he would accept results, whichever outcome. This was maybe a slip of tongue. As results continued pouring in it was clear that Kabila was going to be the winner.

When at last the results were officially announced this week, who, but Bemba, held a press conference saying there was no way he was going to accept the results. I wasn't surprised, this is what I'd been expecting all along. Typical African elections. And in the land of the Ramble in the Jungle too! Someone will sing about it sometime, for the Congolese are so musical...

Fraud office is investigating £28m deal agreed by Blair

Revisited from way back in June 2003--BBC article at the bottom of this post. Since then several things have changed. Tanzania has a new president, and Blair has fallen from grace due to Baghdad hiccup...


The Times November 13, 2006

Fraud office is investigating £28m deal agreed by Blair
By Sam Coates
Members of the Cabinet were overruled by the Prime Minister when they queried a BAE Systems contract in Tanzania, writes our correspondent

Protesters dressed as Tony Blair and Sir Richard Evans suggest close
links between the two in 2004 (Nick Ray/The Times)

A CONTROVERSIAL deal personally approved by Tony Blair to send a
multimillion-pound air traffic control system to Africa is being
investigated for corruption, The Times can reveal.

The Serious Fraud Office and Ministry of Defence police are looking
into allegations that BAE Systems paid backhanders to the Tanzanian
Government for a £28 million military air traffic control system.

The Prime Minister overruled Gordon Brown and other Cabinet ministers
to approve the deal, despite warnings from the World Bank that it could
have bought a non-military system for a tenth of the price.

Investigators, who have been studying the deal for more than six
months, made a fact-finding visit to the House of Commons last
Wednesday. They were handed a dossier of evidence compiled by Norman
Lamb, the Liberal Democrat MP who has played a key role questioning the
deal.

The news that a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation is under way
risks reopening one of the most divisive rows of the last Parliament,
which pitted the Chancellor and Clare Short, the former International
Development Secretary, against Jack Straw, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff
Hoon, who were in favour of the deal.


Friday, 14 June, 2002, 08:34 GMT 09:34 UK
Tanzania radar sale 'waste of cash'

A £28m military air traffic control system the UK Government wants to sell Tanzania is a complete waste of money, according to the World Bank. Sources have told the BBC the bank had branded the system old, inappropriate and unworkable in a United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) report commissioned by the bank. Tanzania could buy a civilian system for an eighth of the cost, it said. And the British system would not even cover all of the east African country's civil aviation needs, according to the report. Tanzania's President Mkapa has held urgent talks with Tony Blair about the findings, according to press reports. BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan said the report is highly critical and claims the technology is old and inappropriate. Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think this brings into strong question the judgement of the prime minister and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. Norman Lamb: Report raises serious questions "International Development Secretary Clare Short made very clear in autumn last year that she was very unhappy with the deal. "And yet they pushed through this export licence in December last year, despite clear evidence the entire system was inappropriate." Manufacturers BAE Systems have accused the report of making false cost comparisons. But Liberal Democrat international development spokesman Norman Lamb has conducted his own investigation. Objections He told The Guardian newspaper: "A modern civilian air traffic control system can cost as little as £3.5m. "The Department of Trade and Industry, with the apparent support of the prime minister, has colluded with British Aerospace and Barclays Bank in foisting an expensive and unnecessary arms deal on the desperately poor people of Tanzania. "It is no surprise the Tanzanian Government have reacted with horror." Clare Short was concerned about the cost Barclays Bank said they do not comment on individual loans but any loan they do make has to conform with export licensing laws. Mr Blair over-ruled objections from Cabinet colleagues, including Chancellor Gordon Brown, to grant an export license for the product last December. Ms Short had argued that such an advanced system was unnecessary and the cash could be better spent. In March she ordered the delay of a £9.7m aid payment to Tanzania pending the results of the report.

Whew Ditto, Rummy make a commot

High-profile Tanzanian politician ended his career dramatically when he shot dead a bus driver who'd caused a dent on his car. Naturally he has tendered his resignation as Regional Commissioner for Tabora.

Unbelievable that such occurrence should take place in Dar-es-Salaam where a sound of gunshot is a rare thing to hear.

US Defence Secretary Rumsfield is a man the whole world knew in detail from media coverages and proceeded to dislike him with intensity. Yet he hung on until it was no longer possible; when Democrats took the House from Republicans (he must have contributed to this defeat) and knew the sack was coming. So he bowed out to go eat pancakes and coffee in his cozy home while young Americans are having rough times in Iraq unnecessarily.

Meanwhile GWB who has just undergone transformation from a man to a lame duck, he'll be forced to toe the logic line. It wasn't possible this time to pull a fast one on ballots.

Plain stupid: Malawian reaction from Madonna's adoption bid

I'm sure all of us must have heard the story by now.

Madonna, the American super-star, with what I see as wholly
well-meaning gesture, sought to adopt a year-old malawian boy, Banda.
The boy was in an ophanage. It's not as if Madonna is desperate for a
child--she and her husband have two kids already.

The reaction of human rights groups and press surprised everyone,
especially Madonna and her husband. I am not at all surprised. That is
typical African way of doing things. Grab any subject as long as you
can get some popularity, attract media attention, and have something
to report as one of your major annual activities.

The amount of money the human rights watchdogs are spending as legal
fees to fight the madonna case could have helped other kids still in
Malawian ophanages--Madonna had been right all along when she sang, "A man can tell a thousand lies", although I'd express it as, "A thousand men can tell a lie": that's what so called press and human rights critics are doing in exchange for cheap popularity.

Dear Madonna, have heart, thousands of us are rallying right behind you!