Corpun file 17598

Independent Online, South Africa, 6 April 2006

'A good spanking will whip them back into line'

Dar es Salaam - The Tanzanian government should add spanking to its list of possible punishments for errant investors, local media on Thursday quoted a member of parliament saying.

"Spanking should be added in the list of punishments to deal with investors who are not abiding by the laid down laws," The Citizen newspaper quoted legislator Masolwa Cosmas Masolwa as saying during a parliamentary debate on a bill to strengthen laws that regulate banks and other financial institutions.

"A stroke or two on offenders would humiliate them and whip them back in line," the state-owned Daily News also quoted Masolwa, who belongs to the ruling party, as saying.

The east African nation's political stability since independence in 1961 and healthy recent economic growth has made it popular with foreign investors who have poured more money into Tanzania recently than into neighbouring Kenya or Uganda.

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