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JK: No doubt we are going to attain our set goals
2006-12-21 08:32:47
By Flora Wingia
President Jakaya Kikwete marks his 365th day in office today.
In an interview with editors of The Guardian, Nipashe, Flora Wingia, Bernard Mapalala and Juma Nkamia of Radio Tanzania, he explains the efforts taken by his government to bolster the lives of Tanzanians. Read on…
Q: One year could be a considerably long period for a person, but short for a government undertaking a programme. What would you say are the achievements your government has made?
A: It is true that a person’s life is relatively short when compared to that of a nation. But let me say that in the one year I have been in power, I am satisfied with what we have done.
You could divide the year into two periods. We have spent much of our time in the first part to plan what we want to do.
I remember when we had our first cabinet meeting; we decided that every minister should work out a five year plan for his ministry.
We specified the time frame to do the job.
I am thankful that the work was done. I also spent the same period to go around all ministries, departments and regions to study the real situation for better action. All that we had planned is what was put in the July government budget this year.
In the one year period, in terms of government programmes implementation, you might say it is an equivalent of six months, because the first six months were for accomplishing the work of the previous government.
We have started and this is the sixth month whereby we have identified a number of objectives in the cabinet for implementation.
We believe that in this financial year we are going to reach many of the objectives.
Q: Do you think the one year period you have been in power you have been able to establish a solid basis for the work ahead of you. In other words, isn’t the basement now ready and the remaining work is to build the wall?
A: I have no doubt we are going to attain our set goals.
We might attain all of them or a big part of them. In my inaugural Parliament speech, I mentioned ten things that we intend to accomplish.
One is to consolidate freedom, peace, stability and unity of the nation. During this one year period I am sure we have succeeded.
We have been able to consolidate the freedom, stability and peace.
We also promised to stave off crime, particularly robbery. I said we are not going to allow gangsters to reign.
I think you have also witnesses that much effort has been put into this and we have reduced tremendously incidents of criminality and banditry in the country.
When I visited the Police Headquarters, I told them that the bandits would rob any time.
I told them that these are people, who are there, and some live in guest houses, etc. and that they plan to invade in order to grab property and they would always come without any notification.
Now police alertness is prevalent.
After an incident has taken place, people want the Police to take action immediately and the presumed culprits taken before the law organs there and then.
I said what disheartens Tanzanians is to see that the recurrence of criminal acts without the responsible organs taking respective steps to the culprits.
I also said this was a serious weakness. What is evident here is that there was weakness on the part of Police Intelligence in tracing and identifying the criminals before or after incidents.
We therefore did agree that Police Intelligence should be strengthened.
I also directed that the National Security Department should share intelligence reports with the Police Identification and Intelligence Section.
This has been done and I am glad that things are now working.
Now the Police are at work. We read in the newspapers today that the bandits who were involved in the previous day robbery incident had been arrested.
We have succeeded, but this does not mean that such incidents will cease to happen totally.
They will not because of some people’s behaviours and the fact that they happen to have weapons.
You disembark from a bus as you are proceeding home and here comes a person who demands that you should give him all the money you have.
To save your life, you decide to give him all that you have. On this we have succeeded to do away with it.
We also said we want to tackle the question of poverty with new vigour, new spirit and new zeal. It is true that our country is poor and therefore the main work of the government is to grapple with this socio-economic menace.
So to raise the standards of living for every Tanzania, our party has resolved that we should have quality life for everybody (cracks a joke).
Why quality life for every Tanzanian. What should we do to have it? Here we are talking of the quality economic and social services that are capable of simplifying and bettering life.
Second, we are talking of increased income. In the social services I have in mind the social services like water, education, heath, roads, telecommunications and others.
My directives to my ministers are that everyone should have his business plan. That is— the one who mans education, for example, should plan for quality education for Tanzanians and how they are going to get.
This should be so in health, roads, electricity, water, etc. That is the directive.
This work, as I am talking right now is ready and implementation has started.
Let us take, for example, primary education where our main challenge is to ensure that every child who is eligible to go to school goes to school
What does this means? This means to increase the number of classrooms where they are needed. And this therefore means building new schools.
All these activities are going on.
Q: Mr President, on the same issue of education, in the just announced STD VII results, some pupils had their results scrapped because of exam cheats.
Our investigations have shown that the main problem is competition between districts and regions.
It is said that some district leaders pressurize the teachers to leak the exams to have better pupil passes in their districts.
For example, there is one school where we were told that a militia was assigned to scale up a baobab tree to the top where he could spot any coming inspectors’ car until when the exercise of showing the pupils the exams was over.
Now it is true that you are taking steps to see that those who have reached the age of going to school go to school.
But the main issue at stake is the kind of education that the pupils get, which I am afraid might not help them in future. How does the government look at this?
A: I think...firstly, such incidents have been occurring for many years and I don’t think leakage of examinations has emerged at this moment.
When I was a student there were some people who were stealing examinations.
Thus, if it is a problem, the main cause is lack of confidence among teachers who think their pupils might not pass without their assistance.
Sometimes, involvement of teachers in stealing the examinations is merely tarnishing positive image of pupils.
The pupils are incapable of passing the examinations without assistance from their teachers.
Some teachers just create fear of the unknown among themselves, thinking they have to steal the examinations so that their pupils can pass and score top divisions.
Those incidents are still happening and actions will be taken to deal with culprits.
When I was a Member of Parliament, at least 36 pupils passed their examinations at Mdaula. People were gripped with fear that there was a possibility of leakage of the examinations. And eventually, the results were suspended.
It was decided that the pupils have to sit for new examinations 30 days later.
After the new examinations, 40 pupils passed the examinations. It is mere fear among teachers that cause temptation of stealing the examinations.
A teacher was working hard spending his extra time by teaching his pupils.
If currently, there is such leakage, the issue of education is purely a curriculum.
If there is a good curriculum and good teachers working hard in offering best teaching to their pupils, there is no problem.
That is for primary school education. We have now reached 95 per cent of enrolment of schooling age children.
If we build more classes and schools, we might reach 100 per cent and even beyond in the coming two years
On education, there is also the issue of secondary school education.
The manifesto of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) wants to enroll, in secondary school level, at least 50 per cent of Standard VII pupils who pass their final national examinations by the year 2010.
This year, we have put more emphasis on secondary school education by reaching 61 per cent. But still we have to work hard.
That is why I have talked with district and regional commissioners that the 61 per cent might drop in the next two years.
This is possible because of the enrolment of many children under the Universal Primary Education (UPE).
Our target is not to reach below 50 per cent in enrolment of pupils for secondary education. These pupils will sit for their national examinations in 2007.
In 2008, we will have a big number of Standard VII leavers who passed their national examinations.
If we still remain with 61 per cent, the figure might even drop to 30 per cent as the number of qualified pupils will increase almost twice as much as the current number.
Our main challenge is to maintain the percentage reached so far. And this is the work we are currently doing. The intention is also to increase the target for secondary school education.
There are problems in the education sector. The major one is lack of enough teachers. This problem has initiated a hot debate.
”Our children are not getting sufficient education. We could wait and train more teachers before building new schools.”
We have said that we should work with wananchi to build school and that has just started.
I was invited to Geita when I was a minister. I found that wananchi had built 52 new classrooms. They told me that they wanted to hand over those classes to the government for secondary schools.
I told the Ministry of Education and Culture that wananchi have already built classrooms.
We have to start and look for modality of getting teachers.
We advertized 9,500 teaching posts for university graduades and offered them short teaching courses
Even in teaching there are courses of teaching.
These might be in Mathematics, Geography and then there is teaching methodology.
We decided that so long as they had a basic education, we mean university education in courses like Biology and Geography, History as well as Economics; we can give them a programme on how to teach.
The programme enabled them to get methods of instruction in classes.
3,500 graduates applied for the posts and fresh graduates have also been applying for the teaching posts and we still employ them.
We have decided to convert the Chang’ombe Teachers Training College to be an affiliate of the University of Dar es Salaam and offer degree courses in education. Mkwawa High School has also been elevated to be an affiliate college of the UDSM for offering degree in education.
These two new teaching institutions when they will be combined with the next three-year expansion programme of the Faculty of Education of the University of Dar es Salaam will bring a huge flow.
I am optimistic we will catch-up. We are dealing with the problem of teachers and we think it will be solved.
Now, that’s what we have done. It is only a logical thing.
If you have got little funds and you want the nation to benefit and want to invest, where is our bet?
To join the university is only through entry qualifications. What is the bet, apart from the bet of Division I?
We have been receiving complains that students with first division are not selected but instead those with Division III— whose fathers are famous are selected.
During last year’s election campaigns, I was with Minister Mungai in Njombe. A youth told me that: ”Mzee I have got a Division I.
I am not enrolled simply because my parents are poor. But if you go there there are students with Division III who are sponsored.
People are trying to reverse the issue. I have said that the issue is a student with Division I, who comes from a poor family not to get sponsorship.
What was happening is that a rich person has a son or daughter with Division III and says he will sponsor his daughter or son.
Through his friends and his famousness, he goes there and bribe and gets government sponsorship for his son or daughter.
Simply because of little money, a student with Division I is left and sponsorship is awarded to a student with Division III.
Precisely, we tried to solve the problem there.
Do a research…. before we decided to sponsor students with Division I, many of them were being left. A student with Division I in Nzega is also left simply because he has no person to speak to.
Kikwete is here in Dar es Salaam, all elders are here, he is familiar with them, sits together with them and chats.
His son goes to university under government sponsorship.
In fact, the problem is exactly the reverse.
We were trying to solve a problem that was facing students with Division I, students of poor and defenceless people were not getting the chance.
Children with low passes, whose parents are famous, can talk with givers who offer sponsorship.
This is precisely the thing we have been trying to solve.
But, we don’t object for students with Division III to get sponsorship.
That’s why I am saying that a student, who decides to pursue a degree in education, will get government sponsorship. But first priority is for students with Division I.
We have said that we are carrying out expansion in our universities.
We are increasing services at the University of Dar es Salaam aiming at increasing the number of students.
The number of students is increasing. They have no enough seminar rooms as well as sufficient lecture theatres.
For all of our universities of Dar es Salaam, Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro and the Muhimbili University College of Health Science, we will make sure that they are empowered and assisted to build more seminar rooms and lecture theatres.
For our state universities of Dar es Salaam, SUA and Muhumbili, but we are going to build other universities because our intake is the lowest at 0.027 per cent compared to our neighbours. Our neighbours’ intake is 1 per cent already.
We are going to build a university in Dodoma. We have started it on our own and we are going to ask for assistance, but even if we do not get assistance we are going to move on gradually to the end.
Q: When you were seeking the presidential post you promised Tanzanians that you are going to create one million jobs. What have been achived so far?
A: First, I believe people continue to be employed every day that is why I said we should try to strengthen the statistics side in employment.
That has been our plan.I am saying jobs are in three categories.
First of all, there are jobs in the government. Most of the employees are teachers and those who work in the health sector.
In education we are going to increase the number of teachers.
In health we are going to have more dispensaries and health centres. In these areas, we are going to have more jobs.
Other areas in the government, there may be vacancies where a person has retired or died
The second main area of employment is in the private sector.
In this— we need to create a conducive climate for more investments.
We are making efforts to ensure that it takes a shorter period for a business to be registered and have it get started and experts to have working certificates.
These are some of the things I am trying to do in order to meet the good demands of the investors
This is one area; the other is that we are working to motivate the investors to bring in investment resources.
In all my safaris outside the country, much of my thrust is to ensure that I motivate the investors to come to the country.
I did this in the US in May. I did it also in September and I have done this in my trips in Chinese, Japan, South Korea and the Arab world.
In January we are going to visit the UK where we are going to do the same thing, Later in February I will visit the Nordic countries.
All these are things we have intentionally planned to do—to motivate investors to come in order to reinforce economic growth. The direction is sound.
The third category of employment is self employment. This also has to do with investment in that people get capital, funds and technology that is capable of employing them.
For the big investors these could get capital from the banks though currently still there is rampant bureaucracy.
We discussed this in the just ended Tanzania Business Council and we have told the bankers.
They have promised that they would look into it in the coming financial sector reforms.
But the other thing related to this is that unlike those who can be assisted by the banks; there are people who, the banks cannot assist.
As I have said banks are not friends of the poor because they cannot lend them.
We have the 21bn/- facility, to start with, so that those who cannot get bank credit can borrow. Our capacity is still small, but the 21bn/- will be a revolving fund.
If they revolve twice, this turns to 42bn/- and thrice it means 63bn/— But we are planning to inject more money into the facility as it grows to enable more people access to the funds.
Q: Can I have a detailed explanation of the 21bn/— on the disbursement. My doubts are that that money might fall in the hands of some conmen.
A: Oh Mr. You know if you are dreadful of the cunning you are not going to succeed. You will not tame cattle if you are afraid of the lions…
The procedures of borrowing are clearly explained. There are loans which can be availed to individuals: The purpose of the facility is to help groups—through people’s credit societies (SACCOS). NBC and CRDB manage the loans.
We are saying, the cunning will always be there, but it is necessary that the government should also be careful in the disbursement exercise. This does not worry me.
Q: When you assumed power you were greeted by drought.
There have been complaints that the power crisis has been mismanaged.
At a certain point, you had apologized to the public…Are there any heads which are going to roll?
A: In my first speech to the people on January 31 at Diamond Jubilee,), I discussed fears about the looming drought, that we were going to grapple with food scarcity, after which I discussed the condition of power generation.
I gave a precaution that we were going to face power rationing.
Also, in my first end of the year speech I talked about drought.
I hinted on the likely problem of food shortage. On the same speech, I explained the real situation on the problem of power production in the bid dams.
I said that power rationing would most likely be there, given the looming rain water shortage situation.
There is power rationing. The hydro-electric power dams are short of water. So who has mismanaged the crisis? The Pangani Falls have inadequate water.
Kidatu has inadequate water. It cannot be a factor of mismanagement by a person… Let us pray to God for sufficient rains to fall.”
I had also notified in one of the meetings that the rate at which Mtera was drying up, rains for one season alone would not be enough to fill it to capacity. Mtera is now caput.
We have reached a situation where even Kidatu, capable of producing 204MW, came to a stop. This means together with Mtera’s 80MW our system has lost 284MW.
When we started power rationing, power generation at Pangani falls... all the dams did not have enough water. So what was the plan?
That was the day the government decided that power generation should not rely on water.
Thank God we have gas and coal. We are going to use them to produce power. But this does not mean that power will be there by merely speaking. This is impossible.
That is why in the plan, we ask the question: what do we do? We are going to do two things.
First we are going to have power produced by hired turbines.
But these are only temporary as they are hired from individuals.
But we also said we should also buy our own power generating equipment so that once the hired ones are taken back by the owners we find ourselves well equipped.
The 100MW generator will be a permanent one for us. We have contracted Wartsila of Finland.
Another 46MW generator to be stationed at Tegeta is being built by a Netherlands company.
While we are waiting for them to be made we have decided to hire generators.
But to hire generators for the 450 MW power lost means more money, which we do not have.
We have contracted three companies to do the work. The companies are Astrol, which is going to place a 40MW generator in Mwanza, Aggreko, which is to build a 40MW at Ubungo and Richmond, 100MW at Ubungo.
Aggreko have already done their job, while, Astrol are on the way.
With Richmond, there have been many words on their work and that is where people say that heads should roll.
I am saying we are going to continue with the project, but if there is sabotage done by anybody (in relation to power generation contracts) we are going to deal with him accordingly.
What happened is that the government negotiating team had been looking for cheap power generation at a reasonable price and considerable conditions. There is only one company which said it would do that...
There was a company whose condition was that the generators should be leased for five years.
But then I queried, suppose our power problems fizzle out in two years, does it mean that we are going to pay them for the remaining three years without using the generators? They refused.
Richmond is the only company that accepted to sell power to Tanesco at 4.6 cents. The power committee was convinced by the terms.
EVEN Aggreko wanted to sell power to us at 6 US cents, and it was the bargaining on part of the government which brought them down to 4.9 US cents. We said it is okay.
Richmond on the other hand, turned out to be a small company with inadequate capacity, and their hopes were that once they got the contract they secure loans from the banks, but the banks refused.
When you look (at Richmond) the company has little capacity. Gossiping started… some people have been bribed, there are sons of the big wigs involved (laughter).
If there is anybody who was bribed, it is not from the money we gave to Richmond.
I blocked the payment to the company because I thought what if we give them a down payment and they disappear with the money?
I told (Dr Ibrahim) Msabaha, if these are contracted, they might disappear with the money and you will take a rope and hang yourself.
Don’t give them a down payment. Tell them that once they have brought the generators, we are going to pay them.
When things became difficult on their part, I was advised to revoke the contract.
We stood firmly to say that the government would not accept it because by allowing them to pull out it, would amount to giving them a financial advantage.
What we should do is to put pressure on them so that they deliver. We knew that if we would let them to go up to the end of the contract, they might take the advantage to take the matter to court and seek redress from the government.
The government has guarded itself to ensure that this does not happen.
Q: Was there no way to know that they were a small and incapable company prior to the signing of the agreement?
A: That is why I am saying our people were more enticed with the reasonable price offer.
It is the same thing which also attracted the other generator suppliers to reduce the sale price. The contractor now is Richmond.
The question now is to put more pressure on them to ensure that they bring in the power generating machines.
The first batch has arrived and Tanesco has sent experts to check it.
Now they are on the line. How they got the loan money that is up to them.
Of course there have been delays in the delivery. We ought to learn this for future reference. But what would have become of their future? We are now through with Richmond power sold at 4.6 cents.
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