Tuesday, January 3, President Samia Suluhu Hassan cancelled Prof. Kennedy Gastorn’s appointment as Tanzania‘s Envoy to the UN due to an unnamed corruption incident.
The President promoted Moses Kusiluka from permanent secretary in the President’s Office to Chief Secretary in his stead, and chose Chief Secretary Hussein Katanga, her closest assistant at State House, to take over as envoy to the UN in New York and ambassador in Washington, DC.
Diwani Athumani, the Director General of the Tanzania Intelligence and Security Service (TISS), has been promoted to take Kusiluka’s place.
Said Masoro, who served as Athumani’s deputy at TISS, will now lead the intelligence agency. The new appointments are effective right away, according to a statement from presidential spokesperson Zuhura Yunus.
President Hassan made the announcement of the changes herself on Tuesday night during a televised speech from State House in Dar es Salaam. She said Prof. Gastorn’s recall was brought about by widespread worries that were expressed in parliament last November regarding “funds misuse and abuse of power” in Tanzania’s foreign embassies.
She did not give details of the specific allegations against the 46-year-old lawyer and diplomat who had held the dual positions since March 2020, but said his sacking marked the “start of government efforts to clean house and restore proper status in all its diplomatic offices abroad.“
After dismissing Foreign Minister Liberata Mulamula for allegedly “overstepping” while serving in a delegation headed by Vice President Philip Mpango during a visit to the US for the UN General Assembly last year, President Samia Suluhu Hassan decided to revoke Prof. Gastorn’s appointment a few months later.
The most recent selections give the impression that President Hassan is strengthening her position in front of the 2025 elections, when she will run for the president for the first time.