New TANAPA conservation commissioner takes oath of office

Shortly after the swearing in ceremony, Kariuki directed Kuji to uphold conservation efforts by ensuring no other activities are carried out within national parks.

“Collaborate with other players to devise strategies for attracting tourists to generate the much-needed foreign currency,” said the minister, adding that improving welfare of TANAPA staff should also be high on his agenda.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan on January 11, 2024, appointed Kuji, an unsung business and financial expert with over 30-year experience as new TANAPA Conservation Commissioner.

Sources within TANAPA see appointment of Kuji as a deliberate attempt to combine conservation interests with those of tourism business as well as of financial management in the state-run agency.

 Kuji holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands and a Bachelor degree in Commerce and Accountancy from University of Dar es Salaam.

TANAPA first recruited Kuji in the early 1990s when he started rising from an accountant officer to director of corporate services.

Kuji has also been harmonising public and private interests to forge good relationship with other tourism players.

“I thank President Samia Suluhu Hassan, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Angellah Kariuki, and the TANAPA Board of Trustee for trusting me to run this key conservation and tourism agency,” Kuji said.

He promised to implement the president’s dream of transforming tourism for the sector to generate revenues and back the country’s economic development endeavours.

“We will improve infrastructure and attract investors to ensure national parks provide quality services,” he said.

 “We will work with Tanzania Tourists Board, Tanzania Association of Tour Operators, Hotels Association of Tanzania and other players to reverse the trend,” he said.

Available statistics show the tourism sector registered 37.5 percent growth in revenue in 2023, fetching the national coffers $3.3 billion by November from 1.797 tourists who visited the country, equivalent to 27 percent increase in the number of visitors.

The number of both receipts and tourist arrivals surpass those registered before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, when the country earned $2.526 billion from 1,527,230 foreign visitors.

Going by December 2023 monthly economic review by the Bank of Tanzania, the increase in both revenues accrued from tourism and tourist arrivals resulted from steady recovery of the sector from the pandemic.

Tourism outmatched gold during the period in review, with the precious mineral fetched the country $3 billion by November as opposed to $2.8 billion garnered a year ago.