Why Tanzania spends millions on Kihansi toads in US

Dar es Salaam. Senior government officials responsible for energy, natural resources and environment dockets responded to the CAG’s audit report yesterday, detailing how the Kihansi spray toads were transported to the US over two decades ago.

In his latest report, the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) said the government—through Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (Tanesco)—spent Sh611.92 million to keep the Kihansi toads in the US for two years (from fiscal year 2020/21 to fiscal year 2021/22).

The revelation by the CAG, Mr Charles Kichere, triggered debates in various fora, compelling the Tanesco managing director, Mr Maharage Chande; the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mohammed Mchengerwa; and the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) director general, Samuel Gwamaka, to issue detailed explanations on why it was important to move the toads to the US.

They said the 500 Kihansi spray toads were sent to the US to protect them from extinction following the alterations to their natural habitat in Kihansi Gorge. That was the time when the government was building the Kihansi Hydropower Dam, which has a capacity to generate 180MW of electricity.

Mr Chande said from 2000 to June 2019, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility were taking care of the bills for keeping the toads in the US. “The toads were to return to Tanzania but that could not happen due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he noted. According to Mr Mchengerwa, plans were still on the table to bring the toads back to Tanzania.

“We expect to have a meeting within two weeks to discuss all matters touching our ministry as raised in the CAG report,” said Mr Mchengerwa.

He added: “The question of frogs is more of science. I am told here in the country they were dying. I hope after the discussion we will have answers on the way forward.”

According to Dr Gwamaka, in the course of implementing the project, several environmental conservation steps were being taken. Dr Gwamaka explained that keeping frogs was just one of the steps taken to protect the ecological system.

The government and non-government organisations together, he explained, took various steps to ensure that the ecology of that area was not adversely affected.

That was why, he added, several laboratories were established and an awareness campaign on environmental conservation was carried out among citizens living nearby the Kihansi Hydropower Project.

“Ecology places a high priority on all living things, and the existence of these organisms is what makes the world what it is,” said Dr Gwamaka.

He added: “Kihansi’s toads are unique and rare; they don’t lay eggs but rather get pregnant and bear babies.”

The first contract on how to keep the Kihansi toads was signed during the reign of former President Benjamin Mkapa in the year 2000, when the minister responsible for Energy was the late Abdallah Kigoda.

When the contract ended in the year 2020 during the late John Magufuli’s presidency, the Energy Ministry, which at the time was under the leadership of Dr Medard Kalemani, extended the contract to ensure that the toads, whose number has since risen to over 6,000, continued to survive.

The contract ended in 2022, and an agreement was then reached between the government—through the Energy Ministry—and the Bronx Zoo in the US to make relevant preparations for the return of the Kihansi toads back to Tanzania.

The energy ministry says the toads will start returning to Tanzania this month (April 2023) and that they will be kept at special centres that have been built at the University of Dar es Salaam.