Top 15 Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Quotes

Roads are the blood vessels of the economy.

We cannot continue to mourn about our country being poor while our minerals are lying untapped and with harvesting at Lake Natron, we will not be the first to do so, because our neighbours, Kenya, are doing the same on the other side of the lake.

There are no demands - undue demands... There are many questions we get? why China? why now and the answer is why not?... There is no any hidden agenda in our cooperation with China, it is a relationship based on mutual understanding and equality; they understand our situation.

Justice has to be done, justice must be seen to be done, what the AU is simply saying is that what is critical, what is the priority, is peace. That is priority number one now.

I gazed at that small boat and said to myself, mhh, I am a Mkwere without swimming skills. Better for Membe because he has married in Mbamba Bay. He can swim.

This is our kind of politics-to involve the people in staging protest marches, but not in matters that concern their very lives.

This is senseless cruelty. It must stop forthwith... I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich when mining or fishing.

You’re negotiating all these problems for several years, they will talk about that, about a newspaper, they will talk about an underage boy in prison (for example). He’s 17 and he raped a nine-year-old, and they ask: “Why do you lock him up?” And so I say, what do you do, this is a rape case, and they want to discuss, I spend so many hours discussing whatever it is this boy... So what do they want us to do? Release him? So that he can go and rape another one?

They discuss no strings. There, the people, they don’t discuss anything. You can’t beat the British, you’ve got to sit with them for hours. They talk about this, they talk about that.

I don’t think they (the Chinese) have better friends in Africa than us. But when we compare to how much money we get, if we succeed, if the MCA is funded by the US Congress for Tanzania, it’s going to be $700 Million. It’s going to be huge, it may be a total of all the Chinese have been giving us all these years.

Why China suddenly is a question? Of course, there has been the concern that they may not be giving loans that are concessional, and the danger is that these countries might go back into the debt, some of the countries that they have been forgiven their debts. This I found to be a valid point, maybe not with Tanzania, because we don’t have much in terms of this huge Chinese development assistance.

I would have been surprised if you had not asked that question, because everywhere I am, I am asked how about the Chinese. There’s a lot of sudden interest on the Chinese and Africa. You know, what is it that we are trying to do in Africa? Africa as a continent in pursuit of development.

Tanzania is standing by the people of Zimbabwe including President Mugabe... Mugabe is there, he is president, he has been elected. If Tanzania had simply said, stupid, you’re hopeless, a murderer, a violator of basic human rights; does that remove Mugabe from office? It doesn’t.

I don’t know how to get the money but if [the radar] is overpriced, definitely we deserve to be paid … They cannot take money from a poor country.

That day may come. But I’m not seeing it coming soon. We are still strong enough; we’re still popular; I think we are doing the right things.