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Tanzania Moves To Compel Husbands To Give 40% Of Their Salaries To Their Wives

By Michael Bamidele

13 March 2020   |   2:15 pm

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A Tanzanian politician Paul Christian Makonda is proposing a bill that would compel husbands to give 40 per cent of their salaries to their wives. Paul Makonda, who is the regional commissioner of Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam city, announced on Sunday, during the International Women’s Day celebrations in Kinondoni, Dar es Salaam, that he will request…

Paul Makonda | Image: Region Week

A Tanzanian politician Paul Christian Makonda is proposing a bill that would compel husbands to give 40 per cent of their salaries to their wives.

Paul Makonda, who is the regional commissioner of Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam city, announced on Sunday, during the International Women’s Day celebrations in Kinondoni, Dar es Salaam, that he will request the country’s parliament to introduce the now-controversial bill which will have 40 per cent of men’s monthly salaries deducted and credited to their wives’ bank accounts.

“I will petition the National Assembly to introduce a law that will see 40 per cent of salaries of men in formal employment deducted and credited to the bank accounts of their spouses who are housewives,” Makonda said.

Makonda said he did not want women to be frustrated due to lack of money, an independent pan African News channel, Alternative Africa, reported.

The senior government official also said that there was a need for stringent laws that compel men to indicate on their wills that their wives would be the sole custodians of their property should they die before their spouses. This, Makonda said was inspired by many widows who had camped at his office seeking his intervention after they were disinherited by their in-laws upon the deaths of their husbands, K24tv reported.

He hoped that would stop deceitful married men from sexually preying on unsuspecting single women, according to the media outlet’s report.

Makonda said the proposal if adopted, would save many young women in Dar es Salaam from ‘unnecessary heartbreaks’.

“I have received a lot of complaints from young women. Many women from Dar es Salaam region have been deceived many times, and they have had enough. Men have been promising to marry them, then later, they [men] ditch the ladies. This is something that is humiliating,” Makonda said.

A number of people took to social media to express their displeasure at the proposal:

This is good because right now we give 101% of our salaries.

— Owadgi Knight (@NixonOlare) March 10, 2020

What about the wives with salaries? Mind you some wives earn more than their husbands

— Geoffrey (@Geoffre28865450) March 10, 2020

This gvt official needs to understand that not everyone has impared judgement, it’s not everyone who’s irresponsible and cannot take care of their families, plus women have jobs as well.

— Kahindi™ (@kahindi_wilson) March 10, 2020

Makonda never strays away from controversy, K24tv reported that in August last year, he sparked online debate after saying he and the provincial top administration were considering publishing the identities of all married men in a bid to stop deceitful married men from sexually preying on unsuspecting single women.