16:58
President of Tanzania John Magufuli has appointed Engineer John
Kijazi as Chief Secretary to replace Ambassador Ombeni Sefue who will be
assigned other duties, according to a statement issued by the Directorate of
Presidential Communications in Dar es Salaam.
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| Engineer John Kijazi |
Born on November 18, 1956, Eng
Kijazi has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree from the
University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Masters Degree in Highway Engineering
from the Birmingham University in the United Kingdom.
Before the appointment, Eng Kijazi
was the Tanzania High Commissioner to India.
He previously served as Permanent
Secretary in the then Ministry of Works when President Magufuli was a minister
in the docket.
He was Tanzania’s Permanent Secretary
to the United Nations between 2010; and in 2011, he was appointed Chief
Secretary by President Jakaya Kikwete, taking over from Mr Philemon Luhanjo who
had retired from public service.
Before that, he served as High
Commissioner to Canada from October 2005 to June, 2007. A career diplomat,
Ambassador Sefue left the Foreign Service in 1993 to work for over two years as
speechwriter and personal assistant to President Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
From the ministry where he started
his career, Eng Kijazi was transferred to the then Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and International Cooperation where he was assigned special duties before being
appointed High Commissioner to India in 2007. For his part, Ambassador Sefue
was born on August 26, 1954 and previously served as Ambassador to the United
States since 2007.
Between 1982 and 1986, he was
Assistant Engineer in the Ministry of Public Works, becoming Regional Engineer
in the same ministry between 1986 and 1996. Eng. Kijazi worked as a Senior Road
Maintenance Engineer between 1996 and 1999 from where he was promoted to
Director of Regional Roads in the Ministry of Works between the year 1999 and
2002.
The
civil servant continued to climb through the leadership ladder to become
Permanent Secretary in the same ministry, the post he held between 2002 and
2005.
When
President Jakaya Kikwete assumed office in 2005, he changed the ministry’s name
to Ministry of Infrastructure Development to which Eng Kijazi continued serving
as PS from January to December 2006.
