If a key priority for , as many experts say, is to upgrade the quality and capacity of its roads and ports and to make full use of its untapped energy resources, then having a president nicknamed the “Bulldozer” seems like a promising start.

Before his surprise selection as presidential candidate for the ruling party last year, John Magufuli spent two stints as minister of public works. In that role, the former industrial chemist — who has an engineer’s eye for detail and a reputation for getting things done — became renowned for impromptu visits to construction sites where he would sniff out delays and malfeasance. The country’s road network, much of it built and financed by China, improved under his watch.

Those qualities will be very much required if Tanzania is to build on that success. The latest budget puts renewed emphasis on infrastructure, with a dramatic shift in priorities from current to capital spending.

A string of projects, covering everything from rural electrification to improvements to regional road and rail links, could significantly raise economic potential as well as improve the lives of ordinary people. Tanzania, with its long coastline and proximity to six landlocked countries, should be able to use its influence as a transport conduit for an integrating east African trade bloc.

Top of the list is power. About only a fifth of Tanzanians have access to electricity and, even in the urban centres, manufacturers must contend with costly and sporadic supply. When the reliance on hydropower was exposed as unsustainable during chronic electricity shortages in 2011 and 2012, a subsequent shift to imported liquid fuel plunged Tanesco, the parastatal organisation responsible for electricity generation, transmission and distribution, into at least $350m of debt. Unrealistically low tariffs — even after price increases — and Tanesco’s poor payment record are big disincentives for potential suppliers of electricity.

The situation in Dar es Salaam, at least, may improve as a result of a 542km Chinese-built pipeline to bring natural gas from Mtwara in the south to the commercial capital. Construction began in 2015 and the $1.3bn pipeline will supply two gas-fired power stations, potentially doubling generation capacity to 3,000MW. The government has set an ambitious, some say unrealistic, target of raising generating capacity to 10,000MW and bring electricity to half the population by 2025.

As well as solving its domestic needs, Tanzania has enough offshore gas — about in proven reserves — to become a significant exporter. The country’s challenge is to conclude transparent and robust deals with foreign companies, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Ophir, and to avoid the resource curse that has plagued so many other African countries where rent seeking and commodity dependency have resulted.

So far negotiations have been slow and opaque. The appetite of foreign companies has cooled with falling gas prices. “I sense a lot of impatience among investors,” says one foreign diplomat, adding that foreign companies have spent some $3bn-$4bn on exploration with no sign of a return.

After four years of toing and froing, Tanzania’s centrepiece oil and gas legislation finally passed into law earlier this year. But red tape and mixed messages have tested the patience of international energy companies. Schlumberger and Halliburton, oil services companies, have scaled back operations. Separately, land set aside for a liquefied natural gas plant in the southern town of Lindi mysteriously found its way into private hands until Mr Magufuli personally intervened in January to clear the impasse.

“This is where this gentleman is different. He makes a quick decision,” says Abdulrahman Kinana, secretary-general of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party. “He said: ‘OK, give the land to [the energy companies]. They want to build a huge plant.’”

Mr Kinana says he expects natural gas investments of about $25bn over the next 10 years. “So we should take every step possible to help them invest.” Such sentiments aside, negotiations are unlikely to be concluded until 2019 at the very earliest, observers say.

One deal that Tanzania has clinched is the shipment of oil from Ugandan fields to the Indian Ocean via a 1,200km pipeline running from eastern Uganda to . Originally Uganda had agreed to export its through Kenya, but Total, the French petroleum company that is expected to finance the $4bn project, lobbied hard for the Tanzanian route, partly on security grounds.

Other parts of the infrastructure puzzle include upgrading the railway to Zambia and adding significantly to port capacity. China Merchants Group is planning to construct a , 75km north of Dar es Salaam. The new government’s exact intentions are uncertain, but the original plan envisaged a $10bn port that would be built in phases and could eventually reach a capacity 25 times that of the port at Dar es Salaam.

In the meantime, a new management team at Dar es Salaam port is trying to overcome its well-earned reputation for backlogs and corruption. A recent crackdown on “ghost” containers, which slip through without paying fees, has reduced traffic, but may set operations on a sounder footing in the medium term.

Hebel Mhanga, port manager, says Dar es Salaam will double capacity to 30m tonnes a year within two years with the help of a $600m World Bank loan.

Whatever the problems in the port itself, he insists that the real bottlenecks lie elsewhere. “The challenges are the inland transport infrastructure . . . outside the port and in the rest of the country,” he says. “Some require time to overcome. Power and inland transport are going to take years to improve.”

If Tanzania is to develop the infrastructure needed to unlock its domestic and regional potential then Mr Magufuli, the “Bulldozer” president, has his work cut out.