TANZANIANS have been urged to develop a culture of writing wills in order to reduce unnecessary conflicts in families and communities.

Mary Makondo, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Constitution and Legal Affairs said that inheritance disputes continue to increase all over the country as many Tanzanians are afraid to write wills.

She made the call yesterday when she visited Mama Samia Legal Aid pavilion at the ongoing Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF-2024).

According to her, writing a will makes it easier for the court to hear inheritance cases, as experience shows that cases where the parties left a will end quickly and smoothly.

She said that even if the supervisor of the inheritance is not doing well, the parties can still go back to court and ask for that person to be cancelled and find another one to lead them.

“Therefore, we are still begging and urging people to write a will so that what we have sought and worked for, worthy that we  struggled to get when the time we leave the world, those who have been left, children, elderly, spouses, will not have problems like what we witness now in many cases,” she said.

She cited an example of the Temeke Integrated Justice Centre in Dar es Salam which receives more than 600 inheritance cases per week, which is a lot of cases to handle at once.

She said that experience shows that inheritance where the parties left with a will, the cases go quickly, but for those who do not write a will the case take time because long time,

Implemented by the Constitution and Legal Affairs Ministry, the Mama Samia Legal Aid Campaign which commenced in February 2023 will run until February 2026 focusing on massive public education on legal issues and systems, human rights and fight against gender-based violence (GBV).

The initiative has so far reached seven regions including Dodoma, Manyara, Singida, Simiyu, Shinyanga, Njombe and Ruvuma.