Tanzania last week marked 50 years of Independence. Next year, it is Uganda’s turn to mark the golden jubilee and the year after, it will be Kenya’s.
When a people have been in charge of their own destiny for half a century, after inheriting an efficient administration and decent infrastructure, it is time to take stock of what they have attained and project where their nation will be 50 years later.
I don’t know what the balance sheet will look like for Tanzania this week, Uganda in ten months’ time and Kenya shortly after. But we can look at a few other countries that turned 50 in recent years.
The state of Israel turned 50 just over a decade ago. They started off with nothing but a patch of desert, no oil but with hostile neighbours. Most of their budget still goes to defence but by the time Israel made 50, they had created the world’s most efficient agriculture sector and an impressive construction industry.
India also got its Independence around the same time, starting off as an oppressed people fighting for basic freedoms. For five decades, they worked on their productive capacity. Actually, older male Indians are said to have very tough cheeks because for decades, they used rough, India-made razor blades to shave. Fifty years later, India’s industry had matured. Today India makes the best electric cars and many European scientists now prefer to take their inventions to Tata.
Africans are good with excuses, and can list a hundred reasons why they cant do what India and Israel did in 50 years. But African children won’t eat our excuses, however clever and convincing they sound.
And anyway, Ghana did their 50 years recently amid relief from all over the world for they have managed to break out of the general lack of seriousness often associated with Africa. Ghana now has a working democracy and there is no fear that the revenue from their newfound oil will go to the dogs.
The DR Congo, described as the biggest prize on earth, turned 50 last year, and has everything needed to create a paradise for its citizens. I hope they are thinking about it. But my favourite country is Nigeria. At 50, they are already making it, in their own way. They taught us about Ibo culture through Chinua Achebe’s pen and now in the digital age, they have created Africa’s movie industry. Their films are lousy and lovely at the same time, but they are available for everyone on the continent. They have had corrupt rulers and chaotic systems but the private sector is unstoppable.
Next year, the Republic of South Sudan will be celebrating its first birthday! South Sudan is worse off even than East African countries were at Independence.
The Juba government has not found in place any infrastructure or proper public service like Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya had 50 years ago. I doubt if there are even 10 female South Sudanese medical doctors in the whole world.
Most South Sudanese still live a “natural” existence and the development indicator statistics are simply shocking. The interesting challenge for East African countries will be to remain better off than South Sudan when it turns five as we turn 55 in five years’ time.
Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com
Monday, December 12, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Time for a Technocrat President in Tanzania?
We have tried a middle of the road type of a socialism that never truly worked.
Behind it was an exemplary idealist and once in a generation leader in Mwalimu.
Four years into his retirement, Berlin Wall fell; with it, 31 years of socio-economic experiment came to an end—with mixed results. Tanzania is a unified republic with a clear national identity; albeit with unperfected union.
At 50 years old, Tanzania’s potential for human development is yet to be realized, the increasing income inequality (the fallacy of 7% growth) is squandering away the social capital that Mwalimu and Mzee Mwinyi had accrued. It has yet been clear to our governments that embracing untamed and imported neoliberal economic policies will not only wreck havoc to our fortunes, but also threatening our social fabric.
The 2008 financial crisis was largely caused by income inequality*. Nevertheless, previous Tanzania’s government embraced the market economy wholeheartedly, though in some cases it was imposed upon us. If 17% of your budget is beyond your means, there goes your sovereignty—on everything. But I will argue that our embracing of bad economic policies is mainly caused by a misinformed leadership at helm more than anything.
For starters, our government is a massive, slow bureaucracy that is also inefficient. As it is, our government incentivizes her inefficiency—which sustains the crisis. The longer it takes for your passport to be issued, increases your likeliness to bribe. Why should the passport manager hurry up to issue you a passport? This is the model of our government from bottom-up. Its pretty shitty. No private company would be able to survive under this model. Too bad citizens are not allowed to shop for governments of their residence. That would be the perfect market solution to punish our lousy governments. Surprisingly, national dialogue on development continues to bypass the fundamental flaw of our country, an ancient governing model. As I pointed earlier, this too is the leadership problem.
Tanzanians have always elected career politicians for the presidency. Mzee Mwinyi, Mzee Mkapa, and currently Jakaya Kikwete were all career politicians prior to the presidency. Even opposition parties also nominated career politicians. Dr. Slaa is the embodiment of a career politician, so as Prof Lipumba (by virtue of running more than twice). Folks who after decades of running sections of the inefficient bureaucracy have convinced themselves that, only they have the wisdom to take us to the promise land. But they almost always underperform.
To me, this is a manifestation of their lack of policy knowledge, and lack of understanding of intricate ways of the barbarous globalized economy. I am not saying wonkish president will save us, few politicians are wonkier than Bill Clinton and yet he repealed Glass-Steagall Act . I am saying that, the next election might be the appropriate time to elect wonkish president, because for our government to work for the people, it needs a leader who has intimate knowledge of how to reform a demented institution with 6 billion dollars budget. Career politicians do not possess such knowledge. More than anything, he will increase the size of it all to accommodate all his political allies he accumulated over the years. In Italy and Greece, career politicians have all retired leaving the position for more technocratic Prime Ministers. The ground is shifting beneath us.
The next presidential election in Tanzania, might be of the most important for this generation. We still have our social fabric intact, which is vastly needed for any growth; but we do not know how long this fabric will remain intact—with the increasing income inequality**. We will need the president who can best articulate the policy prescription to our government so that she can live within her means, while also protecting the society from the externalities generated by our investors.
We ought to look for the leader who can dare to create an income inequality that would benefit the poorest, bridging the technological gap, and reform our rather messed up education system. To get that kind of a leader will require political parties to nominate for more technocrat candidates and shy away from the good ole names that we have been used to hear for decades.
*****
* Stagnant incomes of Americans, made subprime mortgage a trillion dollar industry. Basically, a trillion dollar of garbage loans that did not qualify for government backed security.
**Arab awakening is the results of income inequality that is threatening social fabrics of these countries. Tanzania can be next.
This article was copied and pasted from January Makamba ( MB) presentation.
Behind it was an exemplary idealist and once in a generation leader in Mwalimu.
Four years into his retirement, Berlin Wall fell; with it, 31 years of socio-economic experiment came to an end—with mixed results. Tanzania is a unified republic with a clear national identity; albeit with unperfected union.
At 50 years old, Tanzania’s potential for human development is yet to be realized, the increasing income inequality (the fallacy of 7% growth) is squandering away the social capital that Mwalimu and Mzee Mwinyi had accrued. It has yet been clear to our governments that embracing untamed and imported neoliberal economic policies will not only wreck havoc to our fortunes, but also threatening our social fabric.
The 2008 financial crisis was largely caused by income inequality*. Nevertheless, previous Tanzania’s government embraced the market economy wholeheartedly, though in some cases it was imposed upon us. If 17% of your budget is beyond your means, there goes your sovereignty—on everything. But I will argue that our embracing of bad economic policies is mainly caused by a misinformed leadership at helm more than anything.
For starters, our government is a massive, slow bureaucracy that is also inefficient. As it is, our government incentivizes her inefficiency—which sustains the crisis. The longer it takes for your passport to be issued, increases your likeliness to bribe. Why should the passport manager hurry up to issue you a passport? This is the model of our government from bottom-up. Its pretty shitty. No private company would be able to survive under this model. Too bad citizens are not allowed to shop for governments of their residence. That would be the perfect market solution to punish our lousy governments. Surprisingly, national dialogue on development continues to bypass the fundamental flaw of our country, an ancient governing model. As I pointed earlier, this too is the leadership problem.
Tanzanians have always elected career politicians for the presidency. Mzee Mwinyi, Mzee Mkapa, and currently Jakaya Kikwete were all career politicians prior to the presidency. Even opposition parties also nominated career politicians. Dr. Slaa is the embodiment of a career politician, so as Prof Lipumba (by virtue of running more than twice). Folks who after decades of running sections of the inefficient bureaucracy have convinced themselves that, only they have the wisdom to take us to the promise land. But they almost always underperform.
To me, this is a manifestation of their lack of policy knowledge, and lack of understanding of intricate ways of the barbarous globalized economy. I am not saying wonkish president will save us, few politicians are wonkier than Bill Clinton and yet he repealed Glass-Steagall Act . I am saying that, the next election might be the appropriate time to elect wonkish president, because for our government to work for the people, it needs a leader who has intimate knowledge of how to reform a demented institution with 6 billion dollars budget. Career politicians do not possess such knowledge. More than anything, he will increase the size of it all to accommodate all his political allies he accumulated over the years. In Italy and Greece, career politicians have all retired leaving the position for more technocratic Prime Ministers. The ground is shifting beneath us.
The next presidential election in Tanzania, might be of the most important for this generation. We still have our social fabric intact, which is vastly needed for any growth; but we do not know how long this fabric will remain intact—with the increasing income inequality**. We will need the president who can best articulate the policy prescription to our government so that she can live within her means, while also protecting the society from the externalities generated by our investors.
We ought to look for the leader who can dare to create an income inequality that would benefit the poorest, bridging the technological gap, and reform our rather messed up education system. To get that kind of a leader will require political parties to nominate for more technocrat candidates and shy away from the good ole names that we have been used to hear for decades.
*****
* Stagnant incomes of Americans, made subprime mortgage a trillion dollar industry. Basically, a trillion dollar of garbage loans that did not qualify for government backed security.
**Arab awakening is the results of income inequality that is threatening social fabrics of these countries. Tanzania can be next.
This article was copied and pasted from January Makamba ( MB) presentation.
Friday, December 2, 2011
While the rest of the world chatts, Chinese sales man is making a Kill.
Statistics coming from an influential site dealing with facebook, Sociabakers give an insight on what is going around the world. That we like to chat a lot, and behind the scene some countries are only good in making money while the rest are engaged in gossping. Americans call it freedom of expression, but I may as well say not all the music is good for our ears.
Americans top the list on the number of people arleady signed on facebook. 50% of the population chat to each other and to the rest of the world. Interestingly China, the next economic superpower second to USA comes on the number 92nd with only 0.04% of her population chatting on the facebook.
On percentage;Tanzanians chatts more than chinese, at 0.90%. This means while we chat they produce and sell us a number of gadgets, toys, and all merchandise to beef up their coffers.
In December 2005, at the second Conference of Chinese and African Enterpreneurs, China's Premier, Wen Jibao, pledged that China trade with Africa would rise to US$100billion a year within five years. Forget the capital market, forget FDI, forget the US$40 billion a year aid programme, and forget trade with any other country in the world-this is just trade with China. Assuming that nothing else changed, that could be US$100 billion in 2010, US$100 billion in 2011, and the year after, and the year after, and the year after that.
Africa has a lot to offer for Chinese making the above investement bang a logical thing. Democratic Republic Of Congo (DRC) has a lot of minerals including coltan which is essential in manufacturing electronic capacitors used in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, DVD players, video games and computers. So, China extracts that potential minerals, manufacture computers and smart phones to sale back to the same souls who sits on the same minerals. The receipients of the mobile phones and computers keep on chatting while chinese salesman is making a killing.
On the list of facebookers, 1.18% of congolese are signed up, again this is a bigger number than chinese.
So next time you sign on facebook, understand that those shorty creatures fill their bank accounts with your hard earned $$$$$$$$$$.
Get up, do something.
Americans top the list on the number of people arleady signed on facebook. 50% of the population chat to each other and to the rest of the world. Interestingly China, the next economic superpower second to USA comes on the number 92nd with only 0.04% of her population chatting on the facebook.
On percentage;Tanzanians chatts more than chinese, at 0.90%. This means while we chat they produce and sell us a number of gadgets, toys, and all merchandise to beef up their coffers.
In December 2005, at the second Conference of Chinese and African Enterpreneurs, China's Premier, Wen Jibao, pledged that China trade with Africa would rise to US$100billion a year within five years. Forget the capital market, forget FDI, forget the US$40 billion a year aid programme, and forget trade with any other country in the world-this is just trade with China. Assuming that nothing else changed, that could be US$100 billion in 2010, US$100 billion in 2011, and the year after, and the year after, and the year after that.
Africa has a lot to offer for Chinese making the above investement bang a logical thing. Democratic Republic Of Congo (DRC) has a lot of minerals including coltan which is essential in manufacturing electronic capacitors used in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, DVD players, video games and computers. So, China extracts that potential minerals, manufacture computers and smart phones to sale back to the same souls who sits on the same minerals. The receipients of the mobile phones and computers keep on chatting while chinese salesman is making a killing.
On the list of facebookers, 1.18% of congolese are signed up, again this is a bigger number than chinese.
So next time you sign on facebook, understand that those shorty creatures fill their bank accounts with your hard earned $$$$$$$$$$.
Get up, do something.
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