By Mbafan Ade –
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu defended her country’s initial tardy response to the Covid-19 pandemic on Thursday, claiming that policymakers were attempting to strike a balance between protecting people from the virus while also ensuring that they could earn a living.
President Samia promised to bring Tanzania back into the international fold in her first address to the United Nations General Assembly, breaking with her predecessor John Pombe Magufuli’s reputation of squabbling with funders.
She made history as the first female Tanzanian President to speak in the United Nations General Assembly’s 76th Session in New York. She also took the opportunity to describe how her country has fought Covid-19.
“At the onset of Covid-19, we in Tanzania were stuck in the twilights of protecting lives and protecting livelihoods,” she said without elaborating the period in question.
“Measures advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO) were gearing towards protecting lives.
However, in an economy like Tanzania, consisting of a bigger proportion of people living on subsistence economy whom we need to keep afloat, my country adopted all necessary measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, including joining the Covax facility to ensure that Tanzania gains access to Covid-19 vaccine.”