Tanzania has expelled the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country director, Awa Dabo, signalling a significant deterioration in relations with the international community. Dabo’s official expulsion is thought to have taken place on 25 April which was the same day that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the issue. The statement said that she had been expelled for having ‘bad relations with staff and management’. The ministry had ‘advised UNDP to remind its staff that its priority is to work with the government’ in realising its development plans.

The implications for the oil and gas sector are very real. Although UNDP has no explicit role in the business sector, other multilateral bodies and bilateral donors are deeply involved in the sector, including: the World Bank; Japan; Norway; and the UK. This expulsion will colour the future interaction between these stakeholders and the government across the oil sector and with other commercial and political sectors.

Unofficially, local sources have linked Dabo’s expulsion to her high-profile criticism towards the Zanzibar elections in 2016. Efforts to undermine her have been underway for some months. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received anonymous emails from staff complaining about her performance in January, but perhaps even earlier.

Following her expulsion, 52 fellow staff signed a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supporting Dabo, objecting to the ministry’s interference in internal dispute resolution mechanisms, and offering full support to Dabo. Her wide-based official support suggests that the anonymous emails were a ruse to remove her, although no statements from either party have yet been released.

The expulsion is not unprecedented. Menas Associates has been told of one other UNDP official who was deported from Zanzibar early last year, though we have been unable to confirm it. The representative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was also asked to leave in the past year. We are also aware of at least five other foreign nationals who have been expelled from Tanzania, and in each case their expulsion related to activities in the 2016 Zanzibar election.

It should be noted that the country director is not the most senior UNDP official — that remains the resident representative — but it does show the lengths the President John Magufuli’s government will go to silence political protest, particularly that which challenges its authority to rule.

This is an article from our fortnightly East Africa Politics & Security publication.