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Edward Moringe Sokoine award winners exemplary
2007-12-18 09:32:25
By Editor
This year`s winners of the Edward Moringe Sokoine Awards for excellence in reporting on corruption-related issues were honoured at a colourful ceremony held at a Dar es Salaam hotel on Saturday. We salute them.
These exemplary journalists have done Tanzanian journalism - and the nation - proud by using the power their profession wields to wage a gallant war on one of the most vicious enemies of human development against many odds.
The cash and other awards these enterprising media practitioners were presented with are but a minor token of the heroism with which they have fought the war and do not faithfully or wholly represent the resources they invested in the endeavours that have won them the national and international recognition they now must be boasting.
Reporting on corruption means diving deep into the underworld, where crime reigns and where mercy, compassion and respect for human rights and dignity do not count.
It means deciding to endanger the prosperity of those whose very survival is thanks to all manner of criminal activities, which amounts to courting very real disaster.
This is a quicksand world where, unless one treads extremely carefully, one’s personal and professional life is certainly on the line.
That is why the contribution of all those ready to sacrifice their lives to help make the struggle against corruption a success deserves full-scale recognition.
In the particular case of Tanzania, it is worth recalling that the awards presented on Saturday are named after a former prime minister killed in a road accident at the height of his memorable crusade against corruption and acts of sabotage that had threatened to throw the national economy completely out of gear.
It is also as important to note that the struggle against behaviour, tendencies, trends and practices inimical to the development of our nation has been part of the thrust of the Government’s plans and strategies since the very early days of our Independence.
Founder President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was decidedly and demonstrably opposed to corruption; his successor, Alhaj Ali Hassan Mwinyi found it detestable; third-phase president Benjamin Mkapa would have been happy seeing the vice disappear before he handed over power in 2005; sitting President Jakaya Kikwete has admitted that he abhors corruption so much that he gets sleepless nights mulling over ways to kick it out of Tanzania.
We would be deceiving ourselves were we to claim that there is now a lower incidence of corruption in Tanzania than obtained, say, during the Mwalimu Nyerere era or the Sokoine premiership. But it would be as misleading and cynical charging that the nation has given in to the vice.
At this point in time, what is of greater relevance and consequence is to engage a higher gear in this struggle. Recognising the contribution of journalists and other players taking the bull by the horns would be a superb way to do that.
The Edward Moringe Sokoine Award winners are heroic patriots their professional colleagues and the rest of society ought to emulate.
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