DC URGES THE MEDIA TO INVEST IN RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

By Friday Simbaya, Iringa

Iringa District Commissioner (DC), Richard Kasesela has asked the media to allocate funds for various studies, including oil and natural gas.

He said that the issues of oil and natural gas have been misreported for a long time because the media have not invested in research, which makes journalists to dodgy writing stories or misleading the community.

DC Kasesela made the observation during the training for journalists on how to write the issues of oil and natural gas occurred in Iringa region recently involving Njombe, Iringa and Ruvuma regions.

The training was organized by Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) which is the National Oil Company of Tanzania through which the Ministry of Energy and Minerals implements its petroleum exploration and development policies.

He said that the biggest challenge of some journalists do not want to devote to research, since research has its costs, which makes the most of them misleading information to sell the news.

“The media do not provide a portion of the research which makes journalists evading writing these stories or write to mislead the community to venture to sell news," said Kasesela.

He said that in order to ensure and strengthen the participation of citizens in the activities of sub-sectors of the oil and natural gas in the upstream, midstream and downstream, the media should allocate for research.

Therefore, media must inform the society to know the benefits of the presence of oil and natural gas in the country, hence respond to opportunities.

In 2015 Parliament of Tanzania passed a new law for managing the country's oil industry in the sub sector of research, development, production, exportation, importation, process, storage and trading of oil and natural gas in the country.

DC said that the law of 2015 has come at the right time to ensure that resources are utilized properly to benefit whole nation.

The goal is to make sure the oil industry in sustainable and protect the interests of all stakeholders to the welfare of the nation and Tanzanians in general.

Currently Tanzania has licensed 16 international energy companies industry to search for oil and gas. British gas Firms BG Group and Ophir Energy, Norway's Statoil, Brazil's Petrobras, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp are among companies industry already operating in Tanzania.

BG and Ophir control 15 trillion cubic feet (TCF) off the Tanzanian coast and have announced plans to build a US $ 10 billion LNG plant in southern Tanzania to ship gas to Asia Where demand is high.

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