(NDIMA/IFEX) – Thobias Mwanakatwe, a journalist working for the privately-owned news agency “Press Services Tanzania” (PST) in Tanga, Tanzania, was summoned to appear before the region’s security committee on 28 August 2001. The journalist was asked to clarify a story about an alleged frustrated investor in fruit processing and a related early August demonstration by […]
(NDIMA/IFEX) – Thobias Mwanakatwe, a journalist working for the privately-owned news agency “Press Services Tanzania” (PST) in Tanga, Tanzania, was summoned to appear before the region’s security committee on 28 August 2001. The journalist was asked to clarify a story about an alleged frustrated investor in fruit processing and a related early August demonstration by some Lushoto villagers.
Tanga Regional Commissioner George Mkuchika confirmed Mwanakatwe’s summoning, saying the reporter was required to reveal the name of the investor and a number of regional officials who were involved in the scam. They wanted him to prove the story before the committee.
Mkuchika said that there was no “frustrated investor in Tanga,” adding that it was a “cooked story.” On 27 August, Mwanakatwe said that the Tanga Regional Administration Secretary, Getruda Mpaka, told him that if he did not appear before the committee, which was expected to convene on 28 August, he would “face the music”.
The reporter said that he was informed by Mpaka that the committee members wanted him to clarify who were the hundred-plus villagers from different orange-growing areas who, according to the story, marched to the PST offices in Tanga on 12 August. The villagers were protesting against alleged government red tape that forced a prospective fruit processing investor in Tanga to put off his plans. The investor is said to have spent two months trying to follow-up with different regional authorities in order to be cleared before he could invest in the Tanga region.
Mwanakatwe’s story concerns an Arabian investor who wanted to invest in fruit processing. The prospective investor has now moved to Mozambique where he has been offered land to carry out his business.
The matter was first brought to light in Dar es Salaam by the facilitating director of the Tanzania Investment Center (TIC), Salvator Ntomola, at a 10 August conference. The story appeared in the local private daily Kiswahili newspaper “Nipashe” on 13 August.
