Tanzania has restored publishing licences to investigative website Mawio after a five-year ban by a previous administration.  

Nape Nnauye, the minister of information made the announcement last month, saying that he was restoring the licenses of Mawio, and other newspapers MwanaHALISI Mseto, and Tanzania Daima, who had been banned from publishing online and in print under former President John Pombe Magufuli. 

“If I have come saying that our intentions are good, let’s begin by turning a new page,” Mr Nnauye said to editors in Dar es Salaam.  

Mr Nnauye said he was acting on orders of the new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, whose administration intends to work with members of the press to reform Tanzania’s media laws. 

Mawio was suspended in 2017 after authorities announced that they were suspending the publication for “jeopardising national security” by reporting series of stories linking two former heads of state, late Benjamin Mkapa and Jakaya Kikwete, to corruption in the country’s mining sector.

The ban was initially slated to last two years, however, the ban was extended as officials failed to lift it even after the High Court of Tanzania found it “illegal” and “irrational.”

Simon Mkina, the publisher and chief editor of Mawio at the time it was banned, told Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), that for the newspaper to begin publishing it would require investment.