Tracing Samia Suluhu’s journey since her maiden speech

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan is her nation’s first female head of state and currently the only one in East Africa.

On May 25, 2022, she received the annual African Development Bank's Babacar Ndiaye Trophy in Accra, Ghana, becoming the first woman to win the prize, which is awarded to African leaders who have demonstrated their commitment to developing transport infrastructure.

In just two years after assuming office on March 19, 2021, Samia has achieved significant milestones in infrastructure development in Tanzania, East Africa’s most populous country.

Moe Dalz, in his book, The Royal Tour with President Samia Suluhu Hassan, traces Samia’s journey from her maiden address in parliament, Dodoma. In her speech, she unveiled a five-year plan for Tanzania’s continued economic transformation. She prioritised a vaccination mandate shortly after assuming office, to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Her initial blueprint included the allocation of 680,000 hectares to the landless in their young population. In relation to this, Samia designated incubation centres, where young citizens are trained in advanced farming, before land allocation.

To facilitate the transformation, she is constructing a $1.9 billion Mtwara Mega Fertiliser Plant in the south. It will be Africa's largest fertiliser factory, and will create in excess of 5,000 direct and indirect jobs and reduce farm input costs.

The changes will make her country ready to take advantage of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (ACfTA), which the African Union inaugurated ACfTA to do away with tariffs, bureaucratic policies and boost cross-border movement of products by 52 per cent.

Through exportation, Samia's farming initiatives will also exploit the forthcoming regional connectivity and AU’s single consolidated African airline, a Single African Air Transport Market that will accelerate direct flight travel, to and from major African cities to hasten trade.

To accelerate rapid movement of freight, she is building a 2,724-kilometre standard gauge railway. The Africa Development Bank is funding the $10 billion project. She has completed the 300km Dar es Salaam-Morogoro line and the Morogoro-Makutupora section is on course, with the 506km Tabora-Kigoma stretch set for finalisation in 2026.

These developments will significantly reduce the cost of freight and lower prices of goods. The railway will also extend, via Dodoma and Isaka, to Kigali, Rwanda, with another phase to Uganda and yet another to Goma and Bunjumbura in the DRC and Burundi respectively. Once completed, the rail will be the longest in Africa and will propel Tanzania to become east and central Africa's leading transport hub.

Samia's visionary infrastructural executions will link the region to the Chinese-built port in Dar es Salaam with a new capacity to handle 28 million containers annually.

She is also refurbishing the Tanga-Bagamoyo highway to link the country to the $11 billion Bagamoyo Port, which is soon to be Africa's largest. It includes a 190-hectare special economic zone and an adjacent lush acreage. The port and its economic zone will make Tanzania a key shipping and logistics centre in the region.

Samia is also building a 1,444km Uganda-Tanzania crude oil pipeline, jointly with Uganda at $3.5 billion, from Hoima, Uganda, to Tanga Port, Tanzania. This will earn Tanzania $12 per barrel of oil exported by Uganda through the Tanga Port.

For speedy commuter road transport, she has allocated funds to the Dar es Salaam Rapid Bus System project.

She has also launched construction of a 110km dual carriageway in Dodoma to support the population boom in the legislative capital. It will boost road transport to Dar and to the newly completed Msalato International Airport, 12 miles from downtown Dodoma.

She's further focusing on construction of Terminal 3 of the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar. This has inspired her to maintain a no-visa policy for 60 countries to attract more foreign tourists to the picturesque Mount Kilimanjaro National Park, the tranquil Serengeti and the breath-taking gulf of Mwanza, where she is spearheading the 3.2km Kigongo-Busisi Bridge project at $308 million.

It will be the longest bridge in East Africa and the sixth longest in Africa.

Samia is further revamping the integral Dar-Tunduma highway that links Tanzania to Zambia. The expansion will improve connectivity to SADC nations, including Zimbabwe, Namibia and Mozambique, and BLS nations of Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini.

The $30 billion Likongo Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project is, however, Samia's most ambitious infrastructure investment. The plant will create 10,000 jobs and contribute seven per cent to the country's gross domestic product. Located in the coastal town of Lindi, it will be Africa's second largest LNG plant.

The reviewer is a novelist, a Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Center; @jeffbigbrother