Maj. Gen. Semfuko had previously served as chief of operations and training in the Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF). General Waitara’s appointment to the chairmanship of the TANAPA board of directors was confirmed in a statement from the President's Office yesterday.
The fight against wildlife poaching gained renewed momentum on Saturday when President Magufuli ordered the country's security forces to go after the masterminds and main financiers of organised networks behind the rampant elephant poaching activities, saying no one should be considered "untouchable".
On a surprise visit to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in Dar es Salaam on Saturday, he told members of the National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) to “arrest all those involved in this illicit trade” and spare no one “regardless of his position, age, religion...or popularity." "Go after all of them ... so that we protect our elephants from being slaughtered. I am behind you (all the way),” the president said.
Tanzania, home to the famous Serengeti national park which is packed with wildlife, as well as Africa's highest mountain Kilimanjaro, gets a heavy economic boost from revenues from tourism and safaris.
But these revenues are seriously blighted by poachers chasing ivory to sell mostly in Asia. Since coming to power in 2015, Magufuli has promised to root out corruption and mismanagement, at government level to begin with.
The NTSCIU anti-poaching team is comprised of officials from the Tanzania Intelligence and Security Service, police, army, immigration, judiciary and the national wildlife service.
A video clip of Magufuli's visit to the natural resources and tourism ministry released by State House showed the president criticising the actions of an unnamed senior public official who reportedly tried to block investigators from arresting poaching suspects.
Later on Saturday, he sacked the Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in the Tanzania Police Force, Diwani Athumani, without giving reasons. A police source said the president was not satisfied with progress in the fight against crime, including ivory smuggling.
While at the ministry, the president also inspected a cache of 50 elephant tusks seized from poachers, and hailed the arrest of a notorious Tanzanian poaching suspect known by the alias ‘Mpemba.’ Poaching activities have been on the rise in recent years in Tanzania and elsewhere across sub-Saharan Africa, where well-armed criminal gangs have killed elephants for tusks and rhinos for horns that are often shipped to Asia for use in ornaments and medicines.
ELEPHANT POACHING STILL WIDESPREAD
In Tanzania, the elephant population shrank from 110,000 in 2009 to around 43,000 in 2014, according to a census last year, with conservationists blaming "industrial-scale" poaching.
There are also far fewer rhinos, and they are endangered. The NTSCIU team, which was praised by Magufuli, is credited with the arrest of more than 870 poachers and illegal ivory traders and the seizure of over 300 firearms over the past few years.
In October last year, prosecutors charged prominent Chinese businesswoman Yang Feng Glan (66), dubbed the ‘Ivory Queen’, with running a network that smuggled tusks from 350 elephants after she was arrested by members of the NTSCIU.
She has denied the charges. Some game rangers at Serengeti national park welcomed the president's announcement that no one would be spared in the fight against poaching.
"What President Magufuli said about no one being untouchable has given us extra motivation to fight poachers because we have now been assured that no one is above the law," one game ranger said.
Former Selous Game Reserve manager Benson Kibonde told The Guardian in an interview that a better strategy is needed to achieve any success in the fight against elephant poaching activities. "My honest opinion is that so far we are hitting the wrong target.
The poaching business is divided into two parts – the poaching itself, and the trafficking. The war we are waging now mainly targets the trafficking cartels, leaving the poaching part untouched," said Kibonde.
"If we continue like this, I can tell you that we will never record any tangible success, because the ivory market in Asia is growing bigger and the actual poaching still goes on in our parks," he added.
Urging President Magufuli to take the war to the source of the problem and stop the poaching, Kibonde emphasized: "If the poaching is stopped, there will be no need to fight the trafficking.
But if we only fight the trafficking side, the poaching will continue and all these efforts will turn into one big waste of resources.
" Meanwhile, the Mbeya resident magistrate's court has sentenced 25-year old Pirmohamed Mulla, the son of a member of parliament, to 20 years in jail or pay a fine of 138.39 million/- after he pleaded guilty to being found in illegal possession of bush meat and other government trophies.
Mulla’s father is the current MP for Mbarali constituency in Mbeya Region, Haroon Mulla Pirmohamed. The sentence was delivered last Friday by senior resident magistrate Michael Mteite.
The convict is reported to have paid the fine, which is 10 times the value of the government trophies found in his possession. The bush meat was from the greater kudu (a woodland antelope), impala, reedbuck and bushbuck.
