Jakaya Kikwete Quotations

The presidency is not an office job.

There were times when there were riots in Africa, demonstrations against the IMF because of the policy advice they were giving, the conditionalities they were imposing, and the difficulties that arose out of the implementation of those conditionalities.

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.

My government is going to deal with all forms of corruption. White-collar corruption will be high on the list and we are going to plug all gaps that are being used by corrupt leaders (and) business people.

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.

Roads are the blood vessels of the economy.

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.

The opposition should look seriously into reasons that led them to be rejected by the people. To show our good faith in promoting the culture of opposition (politics) in this country, I am going to set up a ministry to look into government and opposition relations.

We need to conduct a public debate on this issue.

We design our own programmes; we take leadership. Of course the donors come in to support us, to complement our efforts. Our responsibility to the donors is about accountability: about how we use that money. If somebody gives you his money, definitely he will be interested in knowing how you spend the money.