Editor,

RE: "Pope Francis, Magufuli and the sin of Rwandanisation” (The New Times, December 1).

Tanzanian President Pombe Magufuli has proven beyond reasonable doubt that, for the past 10 years, Tanzania had been in total sleep. Now even Tanzanians know why Rwanda’s minerals were always going missing at Dar es Salaam port.

About 349 containers were stolen from the port in just two years’ time, worth 80 billion Tanzanian shillings. Who knew that Tanzanian officials had allocated a whopping 4 billion shillings to a recent public ceremony? Its encouraging the new President, Magufuli, ordered the money instead be put into the construction of the all-important Mwenge-Posta road with immediate effect.

Yulian

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It never fails to amaze that those countries that can at least afford them tend to have the most public holidays. I cannot be sure about the causal direction though: do citizens of most poor countries love public holidays more than those in wealthier countries, or are they poorer because they take many more public holidays than they can afford?

Apart from that, isn’t it shameful that, so many years after nominal independence, many Africans can still encourage their citizens to line the roads for this or that visiting (usually white) pooh-bah? No wonder we remain poor – and objects of disdain.

Mwene Kalinda