Haha, I love JF this where some of us come to be schooled. Do you know why Ethiopian airline can't fly direct from Addis to Los Angeles or Chicago even if they want to? All those flights have to stop on third country for refuelling. Bole airport being on high altitude the air is very thin to lift large aircraft with maximum payload. This will happen to KQ if they want to fly to far places like Los Angeles and others, unless they choose to start their journey from Mombasa otherwise stop start is the only way. Dar gives us advantage to be able to fly far and wide with single full fuel payload.
Yes Magufuli said what you just about Ethiopia and Tanzania agreement, but he didn't read each and every clause on the agreement. Part of that agreement is Ethiopia will build a huge perishable goods storage, If they want send bulk of their cut flowers to Australia for example, they can do so by transporting them on smaller aircraft Dar, process, and them and ship they to Australia. ATCL also has its own chance to embark on cargo business, in fact we've just completed perishable goods storage facility in JNIA. Not everything you've to use road or rail, some agriculture raw material like sunflower seeds, fish, semi produced starch, raisins for glue etc can be transported by air.
And yes, Magufuli did put ban on agricultural raw material, only to stop the smugglers using our land borders and some using njia za panya. All this was to control our taxes and also to know how much is produced and sold from our country. But the legal export where still doing their business as usual.
Magufuli two years vs Kenyatta five years, soon after was elected, with bad blood with had with west then. He made his first foreign trip to Russia and China, but what did bring home from those trips? Russian was supposed to supply Kenya with cheap fertilizer, how far that deal has went? Maybe not that far. He went to China, there he brought home huge Chinese takeaway, $3.5 bln loan which Chinese use RMB to finance it and kenya has to pay it back in $$$ how clever was that. Kenyatta pushed trade relationship South Africa, Ethiopia, South Sudan even with Uganda, but all that hasn't resulted anything. What about Magufuli two years in office, SGR with our own funds and cheapest loans anyone would rush for, Resurrection of ATCL, cargo in Dar port has increases two folds, trade relationships within the region North and south is on another level as Tanzanian companies are starting to spread their wings outside country. It seems Kenyatta hasn't grasp the whole idea of special relations which comes first and then trade follows. That's how US, Europe and Asia build their economies. If Odinga was the one chosen to lead Kenya, wouldn't has to deal with all these embarrassment Kenyatta brings to Kenyans. Now Madaraka express has become another passenger train line instead of cargo line. One minute is electronic, the next is not. All Africans can come to Kenya visa free, the next he realise oops, we don't have houses, schools, and hospitals to look after all these people. Now he is on another embarrassing mission with Mozambique which South Africa and Tanzania will be happy to kill it before it even started for the benefit of their own industries.