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Uniformity indevelopment is important
2007-05-13 09:23:55
By Editor
During his recent tour of Mwanza Region, President Jakaya Kikwete was told that 20 medical staff a combination of doctors and nurses - who had been posted to the Misungwi district hospital, had not reported there.
It is fairly safe to guess that social drawbacks and lack of an adequately conducive working environment are some of the disincentives for people posted or transferred there.
Elsewhere, one of his top assistants, Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, gave hints on how the Coast Region (Pwani) could pull itself out of the quagmire of economic backwardness.
Misungwi and Pwani are not alone but have replicas in the rest of the country, in varying degrees of acuteness.
Many public servants have opted to lose jobs rather than accept postings or transfers to Mtwara and Lindi regions.
Rukwa is cynically branded Tanganyika, implying -certainly an exaggeration that the region has hardly made any social and economic headway since the country`s name changed to Tanzania in 1964, following the merger of the Mainland and the twin Zanzibar-Pemba isles.
Kigoma is considered remote and somewhat detached from the rest of the country.
Postings to the cited places, and others that share similar characteristics, are usually greeted with coldness and misinterpretations.
The perceived victims and their well-wishers feel that the postings, even if on promotion, are a punishment schemed by ``ill-willed” bosses.
Resistance is commonplace, and some people make spirited attempts to block postings through crude means, such as invoking the imperative of being near referral hospitals like Dar es Salaam`s Muhimbili, for close monitoring of non-existent medical conditions.
Logically, public servants must be spread out to the whole country, to facilitate nation-building, which can`t be done if the Establishment yields to the obsession for ``lucrative`` stations like Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mwanza.
That said, however, there are exceptions, whereby some people are true patriots who gladly report to and diligently work wherever they are posted.
It is unpatriotic to shun stations considered remote and unattractive, as are the sweeping generalisations that some parts of the country are by nature backward and can`t be modernised and developed socially and economically.
Retrogressive cultural practices and superstitious tendencies that link development with invitations for being bewitched or killed, are also a huge stumbling block.
Shedding negative attitudes and tendencies is crucial, but so are efforts to spread, as uniformly as possible, economic and social development, as well as opportunities for individual, family and community enhancement.
Once extreme disparities are overcome, perceptions of some regions or zones being favoured and others being ignored or forgotten will vanish.
So, too, will the dislike for some places and obsession for others on the part of public servants.
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