by David Martin in Dar es Salaam
Tanzanians often refer to their country as ‘Bongoland’, using this pejorative word to explain that a person must use their wits to get by.
During the past two decades, as Tanzania has lapsed ever more into almost incomprehensible chaos and corruption, using their brains– bongos in Swahili – is a way of life the society has grown disturbingly accustomed to.
Anything goes, and what in most places would be regarded as abnormal has become the norm.
On the 10-kilometre drive from Mbezi into Dar es Salaam, about 100 shipping freight containers dot the roadside. They cost US$350 each, two years the minimum wage, and serve as shops with windows cut in them or as storage rooms for cement.
In theory, planning permission is required to park them where they are and, were planning permission to be sought, it should properly be refused. But planning permission, like so much else in Tanzania, is just theory.
Eighty percent of garbage chucked out in Tanzania’s cities and towns lies rotting on the streets, creating a health hazard and threatening epidemics. Only eight towns have rudimentary sewage systems. And this, one has to remind oneself, is a country which preaches preventive rather than costly curative medicine.
Few, if any, cities in the world can have per capita as many four-wheel drive vehicles, adding to the chronic traffic congestion. Venture off the main tarmac roads in a saloon car and one soon understands why.
Town planning is a thing of another era. Ugly concrete structures, rarely over two stories, sprout everywhere, buildings have not been painted for decades and skinny cattle search for grass in what were gardens.
Arriving and departing passengers at Dar es Salaam airport get a quick insight into Tanzania today. At a health counter officials demand money from pliant visitors for not having this or that injection which the World Health Organisation has long since declared unnecessary.
As I tried to leave, an immigration official demanded US$300 because I had overstayed my visa. Of course I would get a receipt, he said, reassuringly. But whether the State would get the money was quite another matter.
When I demanded to see the relevant regulations and refused to pay, accepting his suggestion that he put me in prison, he unblinkingly waved me through. It was a tiny triumph. I had called his bluff and was very grateful he had not called mine.
Amidst all this, it 0is little wonder that Tanzania’s elections for Parliament and a new President were the way they were. The Commonwealth observer mission noted that on polling day they witnessed scenes of electoral chaos and confusion such as they had never witnessed before.
But they stopped well short of describing the mainland elections as not being free and fair. ‘These elections were a frig, not a rig,’ said one seasoned Commonwealth observer using a somewhat basic and colloquial Anglicism. Several international donors, while condemning the local elections in Zanzibar, issued a statement confirming their view that the union elections were representative of the will of the electorate.
Tanzanians, however, were deeply offended, soundly blaming their own National Electoral Commission for bringing the country into disrepute.
For the defeated opposition parties and Presidential candidates, the chaos provided the opportunity to cry foul, appeal, unsuccessfully, to the courts and to a media that showed a distinct bias for the negative and, sometimes, the untrue.
The ethic of accepting defeat, even with ill-grace, of ringing the winner to proffer congratulations, was — as in many other countries recently converted to multiparty politics – conspicuously absent.
With mounting frustration, the winner waited. And waited, and waited. The incumbent President, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, whose decade in power has been the source of much of the chaos, seemed oblivious to the delays.
He embarked on a series of repetitive farewells, made appointments (mostly Muslims) to various offices despite party requests not to do so, and left the country for the Commonwealth summit in New Zealand, where leaders bade their farewells and spoke of his ‘wise’ leadership.
This is the country Ben Mkapa inherits as the third post-independence President. He wants to restore the respect his country once deservedly enjoyed before it earned the epithet ‘bongoland’. Few envy him the challenge.
It is, to use his own word, an ‘awesome’ and lonely task. Whilst he was relatively unknown in Tanzania until a few months ago, he is now a popular figure of whom much is expected. But his ability to deliver, other than by example, is sorely inhibited by the bare government coffers he has inherited.
A former journalist, diplomat and Cabinet Minister, Mkapa is a serious and widely read man with an infectious sense of humour and propensity for mimicry. It was only late last year that he even thought seriously about running for President. He knew the state of his country and he saw the type of people who aspired to lead it. A period of deep soul searching followed in which he assessed whether he could do what he regarded as his national duty.
Friends, frustrated by his indecision and not understanding the personal torture he was going through, argued that he should quit the Mwinyi government lest he also be viewed as corrupt, and, later, that he should run for President.
Once he made the decision to do so, his friends were startled by the vigour he threw into the campaign, his understanding of national issues and his obvious enjoyment of the rough-and-tumble of the hustings. Corruption was the major issue for a leader now known as ‘Mr. Clean’.
‘There is a widespread feeling among the population, as well as in the donor community, that it’s a serious disease in our society, it’s an impediment to justice and fairness, it has reached the point where it’s a serious impediment to development,’ Mkapa told me. There was first of all the ‘petty’ corruption which daily impinged upon people’s lives. ‘There is a feeling that you can’t get anything done without a ‘consideration’ to the person whose job it was to assist
‘But on a larger scale, in terms of Government contracts, tenders, licensing and so on, there is a feeling that favours are granted, criteria put aside. This is a really serious disease in our society.’
In selecting his down-sized Cabinet, one of the criteria Mkapa used was the individual’s integrity. Major names from the past were omitted because, on the basis of evidence or public perception, they were judged not to be clean.
A total house-cleansing will take much longer. The Anti-Corruption Squad, which has not prosecuted anyone in recent memory, will certainly be strengthened, penalties for corruption made stiffer and some early show-piece trials are likely. Appointments will be reviewed, dubious licences revoked in the public good.
‘ … we must begin cultivating the confidence of the people that we mean business in fighting corruption Mkapa says.
Underpinning his pledge to fight corruption is the recognition that he must address his country’s economic malaise and develop an effective civil service. ‘ ••• renew the values that characterise the proper civil service as we were told by the British,’ he says.
The campaign trial has focused his thinking. The purchasing of peasants’ crops, health, water and education are the major concerns of the 85 percent rural population. As elsewhere, the cost of living, inflation, retrenchments and unemployment dominate the urban agenda.
Charges for health-care, raised by both rural and urban audiences, are of particular concern to Mkapa.
‘People can understand cost sharing in terms of education. It is a fundamental right but it is not so very fundamental.
‘On the other hand good health is a condition of life. You can be a citizen, an uneducated citizen. But if you are ill and facing death you will not be a citizen. And therefore the right to be cured, to receive some medical attention, is seen to be more fundamental than receiving an education.’
A mini-budget, in part predicated by the decision of the World Bank and most main donors to withhold funds from Tanzania, is likely in January. Given Mkapa’s obvious concerns, it will be surprising if health does not enjoy a larger share of the national cake than in recent years.
The environment may also be given greater attention and regarded as more than a donor catchment area.
More places for women, who form the backbone of the rural economy and majority of the population, can be expected at every level, and three women have entered the cabinet as full ministers. Interestingly, they have been assigned to mainstream, influential portfolios in some of the areas he has identified as top priority — Health, and Works, as well as Community Development, Women and Children. Women were also appointed as deputy ministers in the key ministries of Education and Culture, and Industries and Trade.
Tanzania remains a highly conservative society. But there are early signs of a subtle shift from the ‘traditionalists’ of the women’s league to the ‘modernists’ who have been mis-portrayed as an anti-government breakaway group simply because they seek a less degrading role.
Making the tax net more effective, as well as spreading it and likely stiffening penalties for evasion, will be another major goal, not just in terms of silencing donors’ complaints but also in terms of increasing government revenue for social programmes.
Tanzania has put a basic infrastructure in place but has considerably over-extended itself. And Mkapa recognises that in the era of donor fatigue and other priorities, Tanzania must do more to practice the self-reliance it has so long preached.
A degree of trade protectionism will also be necessary as Tanzania strives to revive its flagging national economy and protect local industry, jobs and social stability from the more predatory instincts of the free marketeers.
Mkapa clearly believes in government emanating from the grassroots rather than being prescribed from above. Such people empowerment, encouraged from above, he sees as the key to transforming his country.
Of himself he says, ‘I am a nationalist, I am an internationalist, I am a social democrat. I believe in good governance, I like the extensions of freedom but an equal expansion of a sense of duty and responsibility, both in so far as the community, national and international duties are concerned. I am me.’
And his place in history? He would like to be remembered as someone who ‘demonstratably fought corruption and strengthened the kind of leadership, public service, values and responsibilities that promote good governance.’
Those are lofty goals from a person who says he will seek to achieve them unpretentiously, with dignity and humility.
For the moment, he is very much on trial for his country and the most important jury are his 27 million countrymen and women. They are analysing his every move, beginning with his government and, five years hence, they will give their judgement. (SARDC) David Martin is former Africa Correspondent of the London Observer, who lived in Tanzania for 10 years. Copies of the full 25-page interview with President Mkapa can be obtained from SARDC.
