{"id":219909,"date":"2026-05-05T13:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/219909\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T13:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:37:12","slug":"light-moment-in-tanzanian-parliament-as-speakers-joke-draws-laughter-during-ruto-address-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/219909\/","title":{"rendered":"Light moment in Tanzanian Parliament as Speaker\u2019s joke draws laughter during Ruto address"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tanzanian Assembly speaker Mussa Zungu on May 5, 2026\/SCREENGRAB<\/p>\n

A light-hearted
\nmoment broke the formal tone at the Tanzanian National Assembly on
\nTuesday when William Ruto rose to deliver his address before
\nlawmakers.<\/p>\n

As he welcomed the Kenyan Head of State to the podium, Speaker
\nMussa Zungu expressed gratitude, noting that Ruto\u2019s presence was a
\nsignificant honour to Tanzania\u2019s legislature. <\/p>\n

He pointed out that
\nRuto was only the second Kenyan president to address the House after
\nthe late Daniel arap Moi, who did so in 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cHii ni bahati na ni heshima kubwa sana,\u201d Zungu said,
\ndrawing nods from members.<\/p>\n

The atmosphere then shifted into laughter when the Speaker made a
\nplayful remark about Tanzania\u2019s Water Minister, who was present in
\nthe chamber. <\/p>\n

Zungu revealed that the minister has two wives, one of
\nwhom serves as a Member of Parliament and was seated among the
\nlegislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cMke mmoja ni mbunge na yupo hapa ndani,\u201d he said,
\nprompting desk-tapping as the MP stood to acknowledge the mention.<\/p>\n

He added with humour, \u201cSasa mheshimiwa rais, mke mwingine si
\nmbunge lakini akikuja anakaa pale juu,\u201d referring to the
\npublic gallery, a comment that sparked laughter across the House.<\/p>\n

The jovial exchange briefly broke parliamentary protocol, offering
\na glimpse of camaraderie and cultural nuance before proceedings
\nreturned to formality as President Ruto began his official address.<\/p>\n

Ruto is in the country on a two-day state visit.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he held one-on-one talks with his host, President Samia Suluhu, before the two leaders led official bilateral talks between the Tanzanian and Kenyan delegations and later addressed the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The talks focused on efforts to strengthen the longstanding fraternal and strategic cooperation between Tanzania and Kenya in trade, investment, infrastructure, transport, and other areas of mutual interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two leaders are expected to witness the signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) and cooperation agreements between Tanzania and Kenya.<\/p>\n

They also participated in a Business Forum that brought together business leaders and investors from both countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tanzanian Assembly speaker Mussa Zungu on May 5, 2026\/SCREENGRAB A light-hearted moment broke the formal tone at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[46256,80,351,112037,4735,785,352,98,100,36736,353,152,101,350,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-219909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-address","9":"tag-kenya","10":"tag-kenya-news","11":"tag-mussa","12":"tag-parliament","13":"tag-ruto","14":"tag-star","15":"tag-star-news","16":"tag-star-news-kenya","17":"tag-star-newspaper","18":"tag-star-newspaper-kenya","19":"tag-tanzania","20":"tag-the-star","21":"tag-the-star-kenya","22":"tag-the-star-newspaper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116522244108494370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}