Tanzania Leader Turns Rubbish Cleaner; President Sweeps Streets On Independence Day

Tanzanian President John Magufuli joins a clean-up event outside the State House in Dar es Salaam on December 9, 2015 (Image credits: BBC)

It is not a common scene in Tanzania - the president, dressed casually and wearing a hat and gloves, joining hundreds of people in sweeping streets and picking up rubbish in the main city, Dar es Salaam. 

But this is just what newly elected President John Magufuli did this morning after cancelling today's usually lavish Independence Day celebrations and ordering Tanzanians to clean-up their neighbourhoods. 

BBC Africa Live report continues:

The scene was replicated across the country, with schools and shops remaining shut as people swept streets, pruned trees, and tidied up their areas from the crack of dawn. 

This is the first time in 54 years that Tanzania has not held celebrations to mark independence from the UK.  

In many ways, the clean -up exercise was symbolic of President Magufuli’s pledge to remove what many Tanzanians see as the rot in public institutions, and their failure to perform effectively.

Last month, Mr Magufuli said it would be "shameful" to spend huge sums of money on the celebrations when "our people are dying of cholera".

Cholera has killed about 60 people in Tanzania in the last three months - many of them in poor areas which lack proper toilets.

Mr Magafuli, nicknamed "The Bulldozer", was elected in October.

Tanzanian President John Magufuli joins a clean-up event outside the State House in Dar es Salaam on December 9, 2015 ©Daniel Hayduk (AFP)

Meanwhile AFP reports that Tanzanian President John Magufuli surprised onlookers Wednesday when he walked out of State House to collect rubbish off the streets, after cancelling Independence Day celebrations for a national cleanup.

Magufuli, who took power last month after winning October 25 elections, has introduced a swathe of austerity cuts and crackdowns on public corruption.

Dozens of fishermen joined in the cleanup with their president, who shovelled leaves and plastic rubbish close to a fish market near the presidential palace as a crowd of hundreds looked on, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

"Let us work together to keep our country, cities, homes and workplaces clean, safe and healthy," the smiling Magufuli said, as he picked up litter with his hands.

Street cleaning took place across the economic capital Dar es Salaam, with plumes of smoke rising into the sky as residents burned piles of litter.

Tanzania is also struggling to stem a major cholera outbreak, which health officials said last month had infected nearly 10,000 people and killed 150.

The Citizen newspaper carried a cartoon showing Tanzania's national flag waving on a sweeping brush as the flag pole.

"Tanzania has changed - this is a new Tanzania,” said Anyitike Mwakitalima, a resident of Dar es Salaam, as he took a break cleaning a stretch of beach.

Former president Jakaya Kikwete, who stepped down in November after serving his two-term limit, took part in cleaning in his home town of Chalinze sweeping and gathering rubbish.

"I am happy with his exercise. Let us give our president full support in his campaign to fight cholera and other communicable diseases," Kikwete told national television, adding that he was impressed with his successor, who is from the same political party.

"I am very happy with measures he is taking to curb inefficiency, tax evasion and other malpractices in public offices, I am very proud of him," Kikwete said.

Since Magufuli took office, some officials have been jailed for lateness, the head of the tax authority has been suspended and the use of public funds to pay for Christmas and New Year greeting cards banned.

Annual independence celebrations usually see military parades, choirs and traditional dances at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania, then Tanganyika, won independence from Britain on December 9, 1961.