Tanzania’s ability to secure funding from international institutions may face challenges due to its tarnished global reputation, President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Tuesday, while swearing in ministers after last month’s disputed election.
Hassan, 65, who was declared the landslide winner of the October election that was marred by clashes with security forces over the exclusion of her main challengers, did not specify what dented Tanzania’s image.
Rights groups, opposition parties and the United Nations have said hundreds of people were likely killed in the clashes, though the government disputes those figures as exaggerated.
“Most of the time we depend on the outside. Loans from various international institutions, international banks, but what happened in our country has destroyed our image a little,” Hassan said.
“That might reduce our reputation to get those loans easier as we did in our first term…. the bad image we gave ourselves might take us back.”
African Union observers said the vote was not credible and that they had documented ballot box stuffing. The government has dismissed criticism of the process and said the election was fair.
Hassan has promised to investigate the election violence and last week offered condolences to bereaved families, her most public acknowledgement of the turmoil, which has led to the country’s biggest political crisis in decades.
During the swearing-in of the ministers in the administrative capital Dodoma on Tuesday, she urged officials to instead focus on raising funds from domestic sources.
In June, the finance ministry said it planned external borrowing of 8.7 trillion Tanzanian shillings ($3.6 billion) in the 2025/26 (July-June) fiscal year. In its 2024/25 budget it put its planned external grants and concessional loans at 5.13 trillion shillings.
