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Advising the President: Time for new economic engagement
2007-05-25 08:41:15
By Mwondoshah Mfanga
The contemporary preoccupation by most Tanzanians, particularly those in the rural areas and urban middle and lower classes areas demand that something should be done now to change their orientation for a better life.
Correctly as stated in the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) election manifesto of 2005 and repeatedly sounded by government leaders, and those of the opposition parties alike, the overriding national democratic demand for the majority of Tanzanians today is quality life for everybody.
However, the major difficulty is how to achieve it.
In the CCM manifesto there are various strategic stipulations over how this is going to be done—ranging from the National Programme on Poverty Reduction (MKUKUTA) to Business Formalisation Programme (MKURABITA) to education improvement and health dispensation drives.
If the government as an implementing agency of the policies of the party in power is to go by all that has been stated in the manifesto, it might take centuries to achieve what is intended to be achieved.
The best way therefore is for the chief executive to make a selection of key development areas that are capable of implementing, and which in the meantime could preoccupy the people until such a time when some other (may be better) opportunities shall have been created for a leeway forward.
In other words, it is going to two years now since President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete assumed the leadership of the country.
And one would expect that as the second year is almost running off, may be it is time he ushered in a grand economic strategy that would enable all Tanzanians to have what he himself has always described as quality life.
By doing so most likely he will not be exceptional because it has always been a tradition for leaders in this country to come up with grand economic transformation plans that in the eventual analysis leave a mark in Tanzanian’s development history.
For example, the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Kambarage Nyerere brought with him Ujamaa and Self Reliance, a programme that, besides nationalising all the commanding heights of the economy, instilled self reliance in many life cores including education and moved rural Tanzanians into Ujamaa villages.
His successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi came up with economic recovery adjustments administered with the aid of IMF and World Bank emphasising on a range of privatizations and liberalizations, most of which opened up the economy to the global markets, besides transformation of the polity from a single party to a multi party system.
The person who came to succeed him, Benjamin William Mkapa, had varied preoccupations which took a cue from his predecessor.
However, the most in which he made a big mark was his entrenchment in the higher world of finance capital, particularly the G8, and the echelons of international financial organizations, which neither Nyerere nor Mwinyi ever attempted to venture in.
Though Mkapa presented Tanzania as a humble underdeveloped entity, not capable of meeting its national obligations because of meager resources, in a way his approach made an indelible mark and a vista in the country’s national development agenda.
Besides, it should be understood that, Mkapa worked hard on Mwinyi`s privatizations by attempting to formalize businesses and streamline their direction so that business get a chance to be heard, contrary to the Mwalimu era where the national top brass was a show largely dominated by politicians.
Suffice it to say that they have played their role and have left.
Whether what they did was good or proved to be less propitious to Tanzanians that is something else.
The major preoccupation of many Tanzanians now that ekes much attention from President Kikwete is the attainment of what he has described as propitious and quality life for every Tanzanian.
One point ought to be made clear in view of economic transformations under the second and third governments is that it happened by accident that the beneficiaries were some few people—either benefiting from contracts entered with foreigners or locals in the course of auctioning national resources including parastatal organizations through the famous privaisations.
This is the very reason that created some kind of resentment on part of the ruling party during the 1995 and 2000 elections. It is gratifying to learn that CCM discovered this in the 2005 elections and that is why it decided to come up with the `quality life for everybody` strategy.
Now it is the onus of CCM and its government to ensure that this promissory note is achieved or at least appears to be achieved at any cost.
What then should be the strategy and how should it be carried out?
There are many areas which if pursued can create an impact, but none will create the best impact like mobilising the lower classes of people, particularly the middle and lower rural and urban masses with petty businesses or professions into economically viable groups that can easily be empowered and eventually have a bigger say in the future economy.
Let me come out clearly by saying that more time in the past 20 years was spent on dealing with foreign companies, countries and contracts and agreement in the course of privatisations—this is the strategy that Mkapa managed to do to his best.
The truth however is that relying on strategy as way of tuning the economy to take off has had a number of limitations, particularly when it cames to the point that the home base is not concretely organised to inherit the benefits from abroad.
For a good political economist, the point now is to return home and start the concrete base of building economic nuclei that would eventually take care in argument the flocking in capital rather than let it trickle through the presently tainted structures where it failed to reach where it is supposed to go.
What therefore could be done is to mobilise Tanzanians through their respective production institutions, be they professional or not, to come up with cooperatives that would enable them assemble capital and purchase shares in the emerging foreign owned companies, transform the real estate and undertake their own initiated transformations in various other sectors.
Mobilisation of capital from the small contributions of teachers in their savings and credit society is what recently enabled them to erect the 5bn/- plus eleven-storey-structure in Dar es Salaam.
If all other professions and economic entities were to come up with similar saving and investment arrangements imagine how many structures would be built or capital would be activated.
But also what is more important is that Tanzanians, particularly of those of the middle and lower classes who currently feel they do not have the economy in their hands would be able to own shares in the key economic growth sectors like mining and tourism.
It is sad to learn that Canadian workers own share in mining companies in Tanzania, while Tanzanian workers do not even plan to buy one.
Imagine if you could have all the small scale producers and service rendering people ranging from miners to mama ntilies to commuter bus drivers and conductors to petty traders etc…mobilised to form cooperatives and similar arrangements worked out for employees of all professions, this is the real economy itself.
If such arrangements could be put in place in a grand scale and not in the way they operate at the moment, and tied to share transpositions in big companies, this is likely to create a deeper impact in the economy in two ways.
One is that it would enable more people particularly those belonging to the lower classes to own economic entities invariably and in different places.
But two, this would create a competitive economy, a key factor currently keeping monopoly dominating and commodity prices soaring every year.
Besides this, there is a need for the government to come up with plans that would enable every region to come up with a regional university.
This is a possible undertaking and could be effected gradually with the aid the Regional and District Commissioners.
Supposing a region could build three classrooms annually. In five years time it could have built fifteen classrooms—enough a basis to start a university in the presence of information and communication technology.
If we are not going to do this tell me how the more than 2 million pupils pumped into primary schools annually, who now have placing in secondary schools, will go.
Lastly, borrowing from the good bits and pieces of the opposition parties is also necessary.
Mkapa was exemplary in this in that he picked United Democratic Party (UDP) clippings on staking money from the budget for building tarmac roads every year. This was adopted and it has worked.
He also picked a bit from TADEA`s 2000 election manifesto on higher education loans extension policy—which has also worked though it has been creating problems.
It is also good to note that Kikwete`s government has also picked some bits from the Civic United Front`s (CUF) election manifesto on mining income review, which has enabled the government to secure more revenue.
One Italian political philosopher once said that what a king needs is what can earn him popularity and keep him in power, not necessarily what is documented in party proclamations.
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