He was vocal in ensuring Tanzania benefited from its huge reserve of natural resources, notable among them the minerals.
In his tenure as president (2015 tyo 2021), he boldly pushed for the amendment of the laws governing the award of mining contracts.
These gave the fifth phase government since independence in 1961 the right to renegotiate or terminate contracts in the event of proved fraud.
But the late President John Pombe Magufuli was buried at his home town of Chato on March 26th without realizing some of his grand plans on the livestock sector.
When he briefly (2008 to 2020) served as the minister for Livestock Development and Fisheries, he used to amaze people on his statistics of the industry.
He decried Tanzania's failure to tap the potential of the sector given that Tanzania is among the leading countries in livestock population in Africa.
In Decmber last year, when he inaugurated the Parliament after the October 28th General Election, he laid bare his strategies on the sector for 2020-2025.
"Over the next five years, we intend to grow the livestock sector by adding grazing fields from the current 2.7million hectares to six million", he said.
Along with that the government will encourage modern animal husbandry by increasing the production of animal feed manufactured from 900,000 tonnes to eight million tonnes.
In fisheries, the focus will be on effectively taping the marine resources from the oceans, major lakes and the rivers.
He promised to encourage fishermen by providing capital, skills, equipment and fishing tools.
The government would also review the levies in order to attract investments.
Only last month (February), he instructed the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries to increase the export levy on raw hides and skins from 80 percent to 100 perent.
The late Dr. Magufuli gave the directive while he was inaugurating the National Leather Company Limited in the Morogoro Region.
He instructed the increase in the taxes on exported hides so that the skins can be processed in Tanzania where they will increase local employment and government revenues.
Fisheries, hides and skins exports from Tanzania for 2018/19 were worth $ 3.6 million.
Although Tanzania’s collection of hides and skin has been increasing over time, the quantity collected is much lower than the potential it has.
Tanzania accounts for about 1.4 percent of the global cattle population and eleven percent of African cattle population.
The country has about 30.5 million cattle, 18.8 million goats and 5.3 million sheep.
Other livestock include; 1.9 million pigs, 38.2 million local chickens and 36.6 million improved chickens. The sector employs about 50% of the population.
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