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New govt should push for pro-poor growth
2006-01-11 09:04:46
By Editor
The size of the new cabinet that last week swore an oath not to reveal official secrets is sufficient to fill-up a sixty-seater passenger bus.
That alone has worried analysts, pointing to the possibility of burgeoning recurrent expenditure at the expense of development expenditure.
The short-term outlook on spending tends to disown expanded use of public cash for administration purposes, especially when resources for development projects can hardly be obtained from the domestic revenue base.
The current paradox hinges on the fact that close to ninety percent of development spending comes from donors in the form of grants and loans from multilateral money lending organizations.
Critics of the bloated cabinet due to the invention of new ministries and more deputies might have an academic point in minimizing recurrent public spending. Hopefully, thought out restraint is not being considered for its own sake.
The size of the cabinet is not exclusively justified by the economics of cost minimization, but there are other equally important parameters that need be taken into account.
One has to consider the territorial size of the country, population size, the extent and quality of infrastructure, as well as the thrust of the national developmental goals.
The overall bearing of CCM’s election manifesto, and, as it was spelt out during campaigns to the run up to the polls, was a resolve to oil and fuel pro-poor economic growth.
The implications of such a grand scheme can be mind-numbing in the first place, as it calls for accountable efficiency at all levels of government machinery.
Increased efficiency would arise from more specialization at ministerial and departmental levels, hence the need for a bigger cabinet.
Even the development finance coming from donors is a hostage to fortune, and these days it must be accounted for.
Over the longer run therefore, we should be judging the size of the cabinet from the point of efficiency benchmarks and concrete results expected, rather than just the number of ministers and deputies.
Five years down the road, one should be able to evaluate its effectiveness.
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