BUY TANZANIAN, IT STARTS WITH YOU!

TAKE a walk in our beautiful cities and countrywide and you will see fellow Tanzanians eating fresh foodstuffs grown and harvested locally to the point of one missing to also become a farmer to produce one’s food instead of buying.

This routine comes year in year out and it is now being extended into the Fifth Phase government under President John Pombe Magufuli (JPM) who is grooming the country (read nationals) to become industrialised and it is possible.

As we gear into his dreams, we should realise that industrialisation should be the period of social and economic change which should transform the nation from an agrarian society into the industrial one, involving the extensive re-organisation of the economy for the purpose of manufacturing.

When we talk of manufacturing, there is no point for one to be an Economist and tell you that manufacturing industry as a sector will generate a lot of wealth and create employment, because at the end of the day we all want many different stuffs in our lives at home for life to be easy, and these are produced in factories.

We have the labour to provide instead of fetching it outside the country for the industry, mention also ready market, local raw materials, reliable power or to be precise electricity and what now matters is change of mindset.

The list may be long, but when we produce goods in our local factories and still do not value them and instead still long to import the same goods from foreign countries, then, something must be wrong somewhere.

One will realise for example that sandals we have in our shower rooms, are now locally made in Tanzania and they serve the same purpose with the same ones imported from foreign countries.

At the end of the day one wants good service in one’s home, not names highlights that this and that product is from this and that country. Why should we import milk, eggs, toothpicks, Irish potatoes, pens and so forth when we can locally secure them?

There are many questions we should be asking ourselves before we embark on the spree of loving everything made and manufactured in foreign countries.

If we do not change our mindset and love our local products, who will come and develop our country. It is high time we walk, talk, love and consume Tanzania products and it is possible when it starts with you and I.