TSN sells Kiswahili in EAC, response positive

KISWAHILI has been branded by Tanzania Standard Newspapers Limited (TSN) as one of its marketable products. The language is common and popular in Tanzania being spoken countrywide as a National, Official and non-official language by the citizens as far as other parts of Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and now South Sudan that has joined the EAC membership bloc recently.


Being the visionary and optimistic media house, TSN which is government owned company has decided to expand the market of its products beyond the Tanzanian borders.

The most popular products of the Company include ‘Daily News’, ‘Habari Leo’ and ‘Spoti Leo’ newspapers, and the newest product-the Kiswahili language. Kiswahili has been underlined as a necessary and most wanted product outside the country by which TSN has decided to vend it through ‘Habari Leo’ newspaper.

The Managing Editor of TSN, Dr Jim Yonazi has said that several steps are being taken by the Company to ensure that it sells Kiswahili into other East African countries which not only speak Kiswahili per se, but also have decided to make it an important product in their economy and one of their official languages.

“We want to send our products beyond our borders and one of the products is Kiswahili language. We have discovered that there is no newspaper in East Africa that writes reliable and trustworthy information with standard Kiswahili as ‘Habari Leo’ is.

We want TSN to become a news service provider agency that’s why we are making great changes in our performance, products and marketing as well,” says Dr. Yonazi. On top of that, when addressing the clergy in Dar es Salaam last October, Minister for Information, Culture, Sports and Arts, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe said that Kiswahili is the 10th among the most spoken languages in the word.

According to him there are about 6,000 spoken languages in the world and Tanzania has the best Kiswahili teachers. Shedding more light on it, Dr Yonazi says that TSN has recently gone to Rwanda for the purpose of publicizing Kiswahili, and he says that for the first time ‘Habari Leo’ newspaper which is published in Kiswahili was sold and read in the streets of Kigali.

The reception of ‘Habari Leo’ by Rwandese and some few Tanzanians who live in Kigali was very positive, and on top of that some suppliers and correspondents in Rwanda shown interest to work for the TSN.

Dr Yonazi says that some arrangements are being taken to have the suppliers and correspondents work for ‘HabariLeo’ newspaper in Rwanda, and other East African countries are underway.

“If we get correspondents from Rwanda and who will be writing stories on Rwanda, then we will be able to sell our newspapers there, but by doing so, the correspondents also will be publicizing their country through our newspaper,” says Dr Yonazi.

To justify the higher demand for Kiswahili in Rwanda, TSN says that there is a great opportunity not only to sell Kiswahili, but also teaching it there. Dr Yonazi reveals that Rwanda has made Kiswahili one of its four official languages, besides making a compulsory language in its school system/ curriculum next year.

Apart from Kiswahili, other official languages in Rwanda include ‘Kinyarwanda’, French and English. So, ‘HabariLeo’ will be used as an important tool of teaching Kiswahili in Rwanda and above all there is great market for Tanzanians to teach Kiswahili there.

Since TSN considers Kiswahili as an important product to be sold outside the country, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Suzan Mlawi has insisted on professionalism when she visited the company recently.

Mlawi wants TSN to adhere to professionalism when carrying out their everyday duties. She wants the Company to escape making reckless mistakes like typographical errors, misnaming people or places or things so that the audience of ‘HabariLeo’, ‘Daily News’ and ‘Spoti Leo’ newspapers within and outside the country receive the intended message in good quality.


Furthermore, TSN has already started sending its papers of ‘HabariLeo’ and ‘Daily News’ to Kenya and Rwanda every Tuesday, but in the near future, the papers will be sent to the whole East African Community including the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)