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Financial Watch:New MPs should get back to real politic
2006-01-04 14:19:14
By mireny john
The body politic is now almost entrenched. All organs characteristic of a modern state have now been re-established following the peaceful conclusion of general elections.
The Prime Minister has been named and fellow cabinet members will be known over the weekend. Elected and nominated MPs have been sworn in to constitute the National Assembly, and for the judiciary plus the media, it is business as usual.
For sure, come the first 100 days since assumption of power by CCM’s fourth phase government, the curious public shall have started taking stock of some of the pledges made during the campaigns.
Behind CCM’s landslide political victory lie short and long-term expectations in terms of deliverables from the citizenry whether one belongs to this or that political affiliation.
Traditionally, the executive arm of the state is expected to mobilize both domestic and international resources to facilitate national developmental processes as defined by CCM’s election manifesto, and refined by national economic policies and strategies.
Almost all MPs won their seats on pledges to wananchi….. once elected….. I shall ensure that this or that project or social amenity will be accomplished … and so on. Certainly, at any moment, MPs don’t have at their disposal direct means for raising resources to meet the developmental needs in their constituencies.
Very few MPs are personally rich enough to spend their own or family fortunes on public goods. As usual, almost all MPs resort to the traditional approach of asking the relevant ministries, and at times local authorities, for development finances.
This way, history has proven that only a minute fraction of the pledges made by MPs end-up being implemented for the simple reason that, both central government and local authorities’ development budgets are very thin and heavily donor-dependent.
Close to 90 percent of development cash comes from external sources, bilateral or multilateral donors, some in the form of pledges that are never honored.
Given this reality, it is next to impossible for the government to implement all pledges promised to wananchi, which is, a matter of great concern and worry to MPs who would wish to retain their status next season, five years ahead.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t suggest a sort of race heading towards blind alleys. It raises new challenges for both the new MPs and their electorates, demanding a fresh rethinking about means for raising development finances.
MPs enjoy one crucial advantage: they represent small geographical spaces and smaller sections of social groups. Hence, it doesn’t take much strain to identify key development needs by way of priorities in a particular constituency.
It is even much easier if the process of ranking social needs becomes participatory from day one, and all the governance structures are squarely involved.
The needs must be turned into monetary budgets, and quite challenging indeed, the primary source of funding should be made to be known at the outset – to the constituent members, however little their contributions could be.
Understandably, this approach is unorthodox, and might not immediately be appealing to the hearts and minds of the electorate, but it tends to deliver in a much more sustainable manner.
Who should then fill in the budgetary gaps once electorate fulfill their commitments? At this juncture, it pays if financing proposals are prepared and dispatched to various foreign and domestic financing sources for consideration.
It is practically feasible to sell a project idea to a ministry, donor agency, a charity or one of the financial institutions, once it is known that potential local beneficiaries have contributed, and truly care for their own developmental needs.
The kind of projects which often attract the attention of financiers are those that programmatically look into ways of mobilizing resources within localities to create wealth and fight immediate income poverty.
This should mark a new beginning for defining the relationships between MPs and their electorate; away from believing that MPs are importers of development, instead of being seen as essentially catalysts .
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