BUSINESS NEWS

Exchange Rates (December 2, 1994):
US$1 = Shs 530 – 550
f Sterling 1 = Shs 835 – 890

BANK FLOATS SHARES. When the Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (CRDB) floated 250,000 shares President Mwinyi and his wife Sitti bought the first 20 worth TShs 200,000. The bank has restructured and reduced its staff from 1,600 to 1,000 and its directors from 27 to 12 – The East African.

SPEEDING RAIL TRAFFIC. The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) has signed an agreement with the South African Railway Network to promote cooperation and allow for freight wagons to move freely throughout central and southern Africa.

REDEPLOYMENT OF RETRENCHED CIVIL SERVANTS. 117 Redeployment Councillors have been trained to help retrenchees to make rational choices about alternative income-earning activities.

IFAD LOAN. The International Fund for Agricultural Development has granted Tanzania a $18 million loan to help small-scale farmers in the Shinyanga, Dodoma, Tabora and Mwanza regions. The funds will be channelled through the Cooperative and Rural Development Bank at lower than commercial interest rates.

BRITISH AID. Tanzania has received a grant of £4.7 million for the rehabilitation of Tanga Port.

MASSIVE NEW TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROJECT. Contracts were signed for this TShs 7,144 bn project on November 15th. Two firms will implement the project which will install 6,000 trunk and 24,416 exchange lines in Dar es Salaam – Mitsubishi of Japan and Segitel International of Canada – Daily News.

ROAD IMPROVEMENT TO CONTINUE. Ten international donors have agreed to go ahead with the second phase of the Integrated Roads Project (IRP). US$ 338 million has been pledged for 785 kilometres of new roads (mainly for the Dodoma-Mwanza section) and 885 kms of roads which will be rehabilitated. But, according to some sources, there will be delays in implementation because the Tanzanian Treasury cannot meet credit conditionalities – Express.

BANK OF TANZANIA (BoT). The IMF has recommended that the BoT should be transformed from an agency for execution of monetary policy into a viable and credible source of finance. The IMF report is based on the desire of the Tanzania and Zanzibar governments to retain one currency, monetary and bank supervisory authority. At present there is no bank-customer relationship between the Zanzibar Government and the BoT and foreign exchange reserves are not centralise at the BoT.

BANK PROFITS. The Meridien BIAO and the National Bank of Commerce have announced substantial profits for the year ending June 1994 – Business Times.

The CAPITAL MARKETS AUTHORITY commenced operations on October 1st. It will launch and supervise capital and securities markets comprising shares of private and parastatal companies.

INVESTMENT IN ZANZIBAR. 37 projects worth $89 million have been approved during the last four years by the Zanzibar Investment Centre. 33 of the projects were in tourism.

The BUREAU OF STATISTICS has changed the base year on which future price trends will be based from 1977 to 1992 – B. Times

MISCELLANY

POSSIBLE UK ALL-PARTY GROUP

On their return from a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association visit to Tanzania in September Sir John Stanley, former British Minister and presently Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, and Labour MP for Bridgend, Wynn Griffiths, told Tanzanian Affairs how impressed they had been by the mature way in which Tanzania was adapting so rapidly to its new multi-party system. Mr Griffiths said that he was hopeful that in early 1995 the British Parliament would set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group which would be able to concentrate on discussion of matters concerning Tanzania.


TANZANIAN AWARD WINNER

Professor Keto Mshigeni has become the first recipient of the ‘Boutros Boutros Ghali $10,000 Scholarship Fund’. One award is made for each continent. Last year the Professor won another international award (for agricultural bio-sciences) for his work on seaweed farming in Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia.
TELEVISION CASE

The State has withdrawn a case (reported in Bulletin No. 49) involving 14 people who were facing charges of threatening to kill the Chairman of the IPP Mr Reginald Mengi and to blow up his Independent Television station (ITV). There was not sufficient evidence – Daily News.

TANZANIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

INVESTMENT
In an 8-page ‘Special Focus on Tanzania’ AFRICAN BUSINESS (September 1984) an optimistic picture was painted of the investment scene in the country. Quoting the Investment Promotion Centre’s chief technical advisor Harish Pant, the article stated that projects approved by the IPC had created over 70,000 jobs. There had been some 229 projects in manufacturing, 93 in tourism, 51 in agriculture and 43 in natural resources. Mining was beginning to boom and the IPC had approved 21 projects for investors from the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan and Britain.

ASIANS IN TANZANIA
‘Asians are proving to be awkward bedfellows for indigenous Tanzanians. Energetic and utterly business-oriented, with a huge network of contacts, the Tanzanian Asians behave rather like the elite courtesans of 19th -century Britain. They enjoy power without responsibility – much to the chagrin of the wazawa or indigenous Tanzanians who resent what they see as the Asianisation of the local economy’. These were the introductory words of a full-page article in AFRICA ANALYSIS (September 30) which pointed out that the 80,000 Asians represent only 0.3% of Tanzania’s population but control 75% of the business. The article listed the prominent Asian personalities who hold franchises for international brand names – Pepsi-Cola (Girish Chande), Toyota (Hatim Karimjee), Peugeot (Shabir Abji), Freight Forwarders (Hassan Dhalla) but pointed out that, as insurance, most Asians have taken on politically influential indigenous Tanzanian directors. All this was said to be causing some hostility at street level between Africans and Asians and this was often encouraged by the popular Rev. Christopher Mtikila, leader of the unregistered Democratic Party.

The article went on to say that politicians had been blocking Asians from acquiring the many parastatals earmarked for privatisation. A World Bank report was said to have noted that the government prefers to wait for international companies to bid for them. But, the article concluded, while Asians take the flak from all sides they do give the drive to the business engine in Tanzania. Asians claim that their business acumen lifted Tanzania out of the depths into which former President Nyerere had led it and a select core, respected by international agencies, give invaluable advice to government ministries on financial and social matters.

BIRDS AND WILDLIFE
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is collaborating with the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST) to save Tanzania’s coastal forests which have several birds found nowhere else in the world and which are severely threatened. The RSPB’s AUTUMN NEWSLETTER also states that the Society is collaborating on another project in the Uluguru mountains and is helping in the production of the magazine ‘Miombo’.

‘I TALKED TO THE RUSSIANS’
The GUARDIAN’S literary editor Richard Gott, who describes himself as an incorrigible leftist, resigned on December 8th after admitting that he had been in contact with Soviet KGB officers for many years (but he claimed he was not a spy) and had accepted free trips to Vienna, Athens and Nicosia. He was foreign editor of the Tanganyika Standard in the 1970’s and, in a letter to the editor of the Guardian said ‘I had many contacts with both Soviet and eastern bloc diplomats, and, of course, with the leaders of the revolutionary movements of the time, all based in Dar es Salaam’.

TROPHY HUNTING IN THE MKOMAZI GAME RESERVE
A recent decision reported in BBC WILDLIFE (December) that the government is to allow trophy hunting by professional hunters in the 3,234 sq.km Mkomazi Game Reserve (which is a natural extension of Kenya’s Tsavo National Park) has caused consternation amongst ecologists. They complain that a project led by Tony Fitzjohn (who formerly worked with George Adamson in Kenya) for the rehabilitation of the park, which has resulted in a miraculous improvement in conditions there and a gradual build up of animal numbers, will be nullified if hunting is allowed (Thank you Christine Lawrence for this item).

TOO MANY PROJECTS?
In a review of the UNCTAD publication ‘The Least Developed Countries (LDC’s) 1993-1994 Report’ the New York-based AFRICA RECOVERY (April-September 1994) stated that donors could play a crucial role in reconciling adjustment with long-term growth. It urged donor cooperation in making aid more effective by focusing on building LDC capacities in planning and economic management. ‘However’, it went on, ‘donor preference for project over programme aid nearly overwhelms the weak administrative capacity of LDC’s forced to navigate between different donor procedures for numerous projects. Uganda and Tanzania, for example, had some 600 and 1,200 donor-financed projects, respectively, in 1993.

‘GARBAGE GAS’ PLANT
In a pilot project described as unique in Africa, AFRICAN BUSINESS (December) stated that Biogas is to be produced from Dar es Salaam’s garbage and will be used in making fertilisers, fuel for cars and electricity. The plant, to be built at Vingunguti on the southern outskirts of Dar es Salaam will treat waste from households, hotels, markets, breweries and abattoirs at up to 200 tons per day which should produce some 9.9 MW of electricity for sale each day. The project will be partly funded – to the tune of US$4 million – by the Danish Trust Fund of the UNDP.

AMBASSADOR NYAKYI
The GUARDIAN (November 25) reported that former High Commissioner in London Anthony Nyakyi is to be appointed by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN Special Representative in Liberia.

GERMAN AID QUESTIONED
The French publication INDIAN OCEAN NEWSLETTER (September 24) quoted a pessimistic in-depth study by the German Development Institute (GDI) about Germany’s programme of technical cooperation with several countries. The study revealed the ‘absence of a viable and explicitly formulated development strategy’ in Tanzania and stated that the government and donors had been ‘unable to generate any major development impulses’. Development was said to be ‘very largely blocked and aimless’. The study recommended two priorities for reform – training, leading to the setting up of management systems and the promotion of appropriate technology.

MILITARY TRAINING IN NGARA
More than 2,000 Rwandan youths, equipped with 100 guns, and believed to be Hutu extremists are receiving military training at night at the Kasulu refugee camp in Ngara according to a report in the BANGKOK POST (November 19). Ngara District Commissioner Brig. Sylvester Hemed was quoted as saying that there was little that Tanzanian authorities could do about it. The only solution would be to cut back the population at the camps but this would be far too expensive.

BALLOON SAFARIS
Tanzania Serengeti Balloon Safaris Limited, a joint Tanzanian British company, has started business flying two balloons (with a total capacity of 20 people) according to the September issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS. The advantage of flying by balloon, Managing Director Jimmy Mkwawa explained, was that tourists were able to see many animals in a short period of time. It took two days to visit the whole Serengeti Park by car but it took only one hour by balloon.

ANGRY CATHOLIC BISHOPS
Tanzania’s Roman Catholic bishops had stopped, with immediate effect, all cooperation with the Ministry of Health on the issue of provision of condoms to schoolchildren reported NEW AFRICAN in its November issue. The furore had broken out over a National Aids Control Programme Calendar which contained pictures urging people to use condoms. A man is shown in the calendar distributing books on AIDS education to teenagers in school uniforms and a woman is shown dishing out packets of condoms to young men.

A GOLD LINED FUTURE
This was the heading of an article in the November issue of AFRICAN BUSINESS which described how Tanzania’s young Water, Energy and Minerals Minister Lt Col Jakaya Kikwete (since promoted to Minister of Finance) was about to revive Tanzania’s moribund minerals sector. Mining once accounted for 10% of Tanzania’s GDP before plummeting during the socialist years to 0.4% It is currently around 1.5% of GDP. He said that some 20 companies had already begun exploring for nickel gold and diamonds and some 260 prospecting licences have been issued. With the support of the World Bank the government has set up a US$12 million scheme to make some of the country’s 100,000 artisanal miners more efficient. Currently artisanal miners produce around eight tons of gold and US$ 4 million worth of gemstones.

REACTIONS TO LIFE IN BRITAIN
A paper entitled KARIBU TANZANIA, KARIBU SANA, the final report of a visit to Tanzania in September/October 1994 by Julian Marcus of ‘Education Partners Overseas’ contained the reactions of a group of students from the Moshi Technical High School when they visited their link institution in Huddersfield, England. The students were impressed by the technology, surprised by the rudeness of MP’s at Westminster, found the English at work and on public transport very reserved but hospitable at home, did not experience any racism but felt that there was tension between whites and Asians, were disturbed by a visit to Toxteth and didn’t feel comfortable about the attitude of black English people to them. They were initially embarrassed by the perceived equal roles of the sexes and critical of indiscipline witnessed in schools (not acceptable in Tanzania they said.) A teacher from another school also commented on lack of discipline but, nevertheless, when he returned to Tanzania, he tried to abolish caning in his school. He reversed this policy change after very adverse reaction from parents and teachers.

SEEING THE BUSH ON FOOT
In an article in the FINANCIAL TIMES (September 24), Michael J Woods referred to a sound he had heard sitting on a high river bank above the River Ruaha – ‘the deep rumble made by one elephant talking to another, a sound which, once heard, is impossible to forget1. Describing new possibilities for walking safaris in various African countries, he mentioned that Richard Bonham (booked through Worldwide Journeys and Expeditions) guides walks in the Selous Game Reserve in Southern Tanzania and that it is possible that this opportunity will be extended to other parks in the country now that a regular air charter service has been established.

HISTORIC FOOTPRINTS AT RISK
Under this heading the SWAZILAND OBSERVER (September 21) quoting Gemini News Service reported that human footprints which have lain undisturbed for 3.5 million years in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli are being endangered by tourists. Dr. Fidelis Masao, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Dar es Salaam said that the establishment of a camp on the edge of the gorge might induce erosion and any shortcomings in security could result in the smuggling out of fossils. Although the two sites are on the United Nations Heritage List they are said to be covered by soil and vegetation because of lack of maintenance by the government.

SOCIETY AND TOURISM IN ZANZIBAR
Under this heading Steve Shelley writing in the September issue of KUMEKUCHA (of the Denmark-Tanzania Society DANTAN) wrote that Zanzibar was and is an enigma. Italians and Germans were vying for beach plots and charter-flight concessions with a government unconvinced it wants either. The history of Zanzibar was nothing without colonialism – Persian, Portuguese, Omani, British, American, German, French – ….years of neglect had destroyed much of what must have been beautiful …. an almost satirical reflection of a clearly less than glittering past was the most endearing trait of Zanzibar today. You almost expected to see tourist brochures describing where Livingstone had his Range Rover serviced, Speke bought batteries for his cellular phone and Burton chartered his helicopter …
Dan Suther described it as one of the safest places he had been to … top government officials were really on the ball, knowledgeable and helpful, trying to make their country work..

TEN TONNES OF CANNABIS
Customs Officers at Felixstowe found 10 tonnes of Cannabis resin worth £35 million on November 25th – 20% of all the Cannabis intercepted in 1993-94 in Britain – hidden in a container loaded with Christmas candles (The GUARDIAN November 26). The find was made during a routine search of a ship from Rotterdam. The candles had originated in Zambia and had been shipped from Dar es Salaam.

RECOLONISATION
In an interview in the TIMES (October 22) the well-known Kenyan writer Professor Ali Mazrui, discussing the collapse of Liberia, Somalia and Rwanda and impending disasters in Sudan, Zaire and Angola, recommended the setting up of a Pan-African Security Council of elder statesmen backed by the major powers on the continent and that Rwanda and Burundi should become part of a federation with Tanzania. The Tanzanian army should disarm all Hutus and Tutsis. In the same article Mauritanian diplomat Ahmedu Ould Abdallah, angered by the abuse of foreign aid workers the previous month by Hutu refugees in Tanzania, suggested a form of recolonisation. Many former colonial regimes he said should be sued by their former colonies for forcing independence on them without first having a referendum. The colonial powers ran away, he said, before they had left any of the benefits of their influence (Thank you John Sankey for this item – Editor).

SUCCESS STORY
Prominent Tanzanian businessman Reginald Mengi, whose Industrial Productivity Promotions (IPP) now comprises 25 companies manufacturing products from household plastics to bricks and furniture, began in a very small way according to AFRICAN BUSINESS (September). He and his wife started by making ball point pens but IPP is now the biggest producer of such pens in the country. Next they went into plastics and then into soap. Their toilet soap ‘Rivola’ now sells better than any other make in Tanzania.

TAPES AND VIDEOS
TEAR TIMES, the magazine of the Anglican aid agency the Tear Fund, announced in its Autumn issue that it had for sale a 40 minute music tape of 10 Swahili tracks from the Nuru Choir in the Ruaha Diocese (£5), a video entitled ‘Ikengeza: A Year in the Life of an African Village’ (£6.95) and a 13- minute cartoon for children called ‘Trouble Brewing in Tanzania’ (f6.50) all obtainable from The Tear Fund, 100 Church Road, Teddington TWll 8QE (Thank you Ann Burgess for this item – Ed)

MUSIC IN ZANZIBAR
In a travel article in the July-September issue of SAFARA Stephen Williams wrote that ‘only a stroll from the Zanzibar Hotel is the Zanzibar Culture Musical Club. Nearby, every night, after evening prayers at the mosque, musicians come together to play informally and celebrate their Taarab music, a haunting, melodic mix of Arabic and African sounds. Visitors are always made extremely welcome and there is no charge.

MARCUS GARVEY FOUNDATION
GLOBAL AFRICA POCKET NEWS (Vol. 1 No 7) announced that the Pan-American organisation the Marcus Garvey Foundation (MGF) had launched a Rwanda Rescue Appeal Fund to help alleviate the pain and despair of the hundreds of thousands of African children in the refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The Foundation has opened an office in London and is in the process of setting up a permanent office in Dar es Salaam. The article stated that unlike Oxfam and Save the Children, MGF was not funded by government money, multinational companies nor was it supported by royal family endorsements or the self-indulgent racist European media. It believed in self-help and its appeal was directed to the African community.

UNTAPPED POTENTIAL
Under this heading OPPORTUNITY AFRICA (October) which began by praising the untapped potential of Tanzanian tourism went on to quote the words of a number of businessmen:
‘Dar es Salaam changes physically every time you go there. The big change is the Japanese resurfacing of all the principal roads. There is now a dual carriageway north out of the city through the prime residential areas…. Dar is an expensive city; a good house in a good location costs $20,000 a year; good quality offices cost $18 per sq.metre a month. Beer costs $1 a glass in a bar. But there are compensations though; staff are not expensive and Tanzanians are very nice people – an architect.

‘It’s tough to do business here but it can be done. You just have to keep at it.. . Dar es Salaam is like a village; within two days of your arrival everyone knows you are there’ – a consultant.
‘I like being there. While the town is run down, I never feel threatened and I walk about undisturbed’ – an export manager.
‘I know it is an ill-used word in Africa but Tanzania has a lot of potential. There is a lot going on and, as Africa develops, Tanzania could be up there with the best of them’ – an export promoter (Thank you John Sankey for this item – Ed.)

ANOTHER BTS
No, not the Britain-Tanzania Society but ‘Bretagne Tanzanie Solidarite’ an ‘association humanitaire’ created by the Bretagne Regional Trade Union (CFDT) in Rennes, France. According to OUEST-FRANCE (August 29) this BTS is helping Tanzania to deal with the influx of Rwandan refugees by sending medical supplies. The article was appealing for more assistance from readers (Thank you Gerald Marchant for sending this item from Normandy – Editor).

QUIET TEACHING METHODS
Teaching methods have to be much quieter at the Kidongo Chekundu School in Zanzibar than in British schools according to Vyners School (Ickenham) English exchange teacher Nicky Stone. Quoted in the September 14 issue of the UXBRIDGE GAZETTE she said that group discussions could not be held as none of the classrooms had doors or glass windows and other classes would be disturbed. Nicky Stone had been appalled by the lack of resources – some children were without desks and books were scarce. Vyners school is engaged in fund raising to help the Zanzibar schooi.

‘THE GARDEN OF EDEN IS A GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION NOT MYTHOLOGY’ So wrote Simon Barnes (THE TIMES, November 26) describing the Ngorongoro Crater – ‘the last soft touch left on earth for the earthls most prodigious megafauna … nowhere on earth has so high a density of large mammals …. I felt one of those sensations, when you know the place reminds you of somewhere else … eventually I had it. Venice. Yes. Unique. The Crater has the same spooky, utterly Venetian feeling of having somehow slipped trough the fingers of time…. …

TANZANIA VICTORIOUS
In a thrilling finish Tanzania beat Zambia by six wickets on October 31 (THE EAST AFRICAN) and thus won the 26th quadrangular East and Central African cricket tournament. In reply to Zambia’s 146 for nine Tanzania made 150 for three with four overs to spare. Hassan Matumla who won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Canada returned home to learn that he would be awarded TShs 500,000 to mark his achievement. (Thank you John Sankey for this item and the previous one – Editor).

THE FOOD PROBLEM

Former Agriculture Minister Jackson Makweta has announced that Tanzania needed to import 200,000 tons of maize during this financial year. He said that the government would have to spend TShs 18 billion on maize alone and a further amount of money on 80,000 tonnes of rice and wheat. He feared that Tanzania could become a permanent food importer. There were indications that by the year 2005 there would be only four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that would not be experiencing food shortages – Express.

REVIEWS

THE ROLE OF COMMERCIAL BANKING IN RECOVERY FROM ECONOMIC DISASTER IN GHANA, TANZANIA, UGANDA AND ZAMBIA. Charles Harvey. Institute of Development Studies. May 1993.

In this paper Charles Harvey examines the deterioration of the banks in four African countries and the slow progress of reform. He provides a lucid discussion of the economic and historical context and identifies a number of key themes which explain the enormous obstacles to creating sustainable and efficient banking systems.

Harvey focuses on three different types of banks. In Tanzania the expatriate banks were effectively nationalised after independence and it is only in the last year that commercial banks have re-entered the market. The first two, Standard Chartered and Meridien are dwarfed by the 100% government-owned National Bank of Commerce (NBC) and the smaller but substantial Cooperative and Rural Development Bank.

The author suggests that the colonial period did not leave any effective legacy of banking supervision and that the lending policies of expatriate banks in the countries where they continued to operate, still largely exclude most businesses aimed at and managed by Africans. At independence it was scarcely surprising that governments became closely involved in the direction of bank credit towards the needs of the newly created parastatal companies.

As a mechanism for directing credit, each of the four governments created new 100% owned government commercial banks. The intention was to provide more credit than before to borrowers previously neglected. This was bound to be hazardous because the new banks were pushed into the riskier and more marginal lending business. In Tanzania, for example, the banks built up significant exposure to the marketing boards and cooperative societies.

In African economies trying to build economic growth a major part of the economic strategy is to rely much more than in the past on the private sector which, in turn, will need a banking sector if that strategy is to succeed. The author suggests that to meet this role a banking sector must provide efficient financial intermediation and a payments mechanism. He concludes that in the countries under focus the banks have failed to perform these basic functions. In part defence, it is worth pointing out the constraints to performing these functions in a country such as Tanzania. These include the lack of a securities market (which would provide alternative and additional sources of liquidity to banks and operations) and the problems created by the lack of properly functioning telecommunications at a national level.

In the period since their formation most of the government owned banks allocated credit using non-commercial criteria; for example to loss making parastatals according to instructions from the government, or to their own directors and their businesses. Government pressure on the new commercial banks to lend to politically favoured customers created significant problems. The fact that the loans were made under pressure from governments or simply under orders, meant that the banks felt little need to evaluate the loans or to press for loan servicing. Failure to service bank lending was regarded as the government’s, not the bank’s problem. This led to reckless lending and borrowing.

The effect of this was to create an increasing government liability. Governments had either to create grants to repay their commercial loans, or to recapitalise their commercial banks after writing off their loans to parastatals. One way or another it became impossible to reform the banking system without at the same time doing something about the parastatals. Meanwhile, the quality of lending to parastatals reduced the credit available to the rest of the economy. Harvey picks out Ghana as being furthest along the way to banking reform and Tanzania as being at the earliest phase.
The main features of banking reform that he identified are:
– the transfer of non-performing assets to an assets recovery trust with interest bearing bonds being issued on these to the originating banks;
– replacement of the senior management and boards of directors of parastatal banks, while giving a mandate to the replacements to improve lending policy and practice, with the main emphasis on profitability;
– the establishment of new banking laws covering licensing, capital requirements, capital adequacy ratios, and portfolio concentration, to be enforced by central bank supervisory departments; and,
– the introduction of international accounting and audit principles.
The author sees Tanzania’s position as being particularly difficult due to the extreme concentration of the banking market in the hands of the NBC, the precarious economic situation of the parastatals and the legacy of subversion of the credit process away from commercial criteria and towards other goals. In the period up to 1992 NBC’s lending effectively became an extension of the government budget, with the banking system failing to direct lending to those who could make productive use of credit.

He describes the reform of Tanzania’s banking system as an impressive attempt to sort out an impossible mess, depending on the simultaneous reform of the commercial banks and the parastatal sector. He is less optimistic about Tanzania than the other countries, primarily because government did not just interfere but completely took over the allocation of credit. As a result employees have had little or no experience of commercial lending decisions for twenty years or so. Effective change will therefore depend on significant cultural change and a substantial investment in training a new generation of staff .

The author concludes that the transition to self-sustaining recovery from recovery strongly dependent on aid will take a very long time, much longer than was thought by the donors when structural adjustment programmes were first agreed. The slowness of commercial bank reform is not the only reason for this but the paper argues convincingly that it is an important contributory factor.
Chris Darling

THE ANTICLIMAX IN KWAHANI, ZANZIBAR. PARTICIPATION AND MULTIPARTISM IN TANZANIA. M Mmuya and A Chaligha. Fredrich Ebert Stiftung/Dar es Salaam University Press. 1993. 145 ps.

The first parliamentary by-election under multi-partyism was held in the Kwahani constituency in Zanzibar on April 18th 1993. It was an anti-climax because all the eleven opposition parties except one (the small Tanzania Peoples Party – TPP) boycotted it because of what they described as an intransigent and belligerent CCM regime in the Isles.

But the book itself is far from being an anti-climax. One cannot but be impressed by the sheer quantity of facts and figures and the skillful analysis of the political scene in Tanzania which is squeezed into this modest little publication; about the tangled politics of Zanzibar and how people still tend to be categorised as either supporters of the revolution or supporters of the former Sultan; the ideological vacuum; the Union issue; the powerful influence of the main opposition party the CUF: the religious factor; the effectiveness of CCMrs well-organised campaign; the part played by flags/dress/poetry/dance/music/gifts in the election; the details of the electoral process (including government funding) which had been laid down in the Political Parties Act No. 5 of 1992; the determined and successful efforts of the Electoral Commission to ensure a free and fair election; and, a lot of sound advice to aspiring opposition politicians.

Above all, the book gives an analysis of the significance of the 205 different ‘Maskani’ (neighbourhood meeting places which have become associated with the traditional and radical CCM at the grassroots) and how they are becoming a problem both to the CCM leadership and the new opposition parties. And the result of the by-election? The CCM candidate won with 89.3% of the votes cast. This is an essential read for anyone interested in politics in Tanzania in 1995 – DRB.

A COORDINATING AND PARTICIPATORY APPROACH TO MANAGING CITIES: THE CASE OF THE SUSTAINABLE DAR ES SALAAM PROJECT IN TANZANIA. Francos Halla. Habitat International. 18. (3) 1994. 12 pages.

This paper begins by demolishing the supporters of the ‘Master Plan Approach’ to town planning. The author quotes approvingly another writer’s criticism of it – ‘misleading in stated objectives, unrealistic in expectation of future conditions, invalid in diagnosing underlying causes of the most pressing problems, irrelevant in choice of major professional concerns, inflexible and static in methods and procedures, ineffective in influencing the direction of public resources or interventions …. We learn that Dar es Salaam has been ‘master planned’ (‘futile preoccupation’) in 1948, 1968 and 1979.

By contrast, after only two years, the pilot ‘Sustainable Dar es Salaam Project’ (SDP) with technical assistance from UNCHS (Habitat) is pronounced a success. The SDP seeks to ‘coordinate the development activities of all the key actors and promote their participation in all sector’s of the city’s community – popular, private and public’. The procedure involves four stages:
– preparation of the city’s environmental profile;
– consultation on environmental issues;
– preparation by working groups of action plans;
– strategic planning framework as a policy document for an increasingly effective management of the city;
The paper records achievements to date but indicates also some of the practical and institutional constraints. For example, unsuitable offices, the bureaucracy of both central and local governments, lack of funds, the dominance in working sessions of the public sector, the tendency for some of the actors to be entrenched in the orthodoxy of urban planning, and, most disturbingly, the author’s statement that ‘the continued existence of the approach has to a greater extent depended on the determination of the technical support team and financial support by international donors. Is this another imported project destined to disappear when the funds run out? – DRB


INSECT MAN: A FIGHT AGAINST MALARIA IN AFRICA
. Alec Smith. Radcliffe Press. 1993.

This is one of a series of a dozen very personal memoirs of the lives of British expatriates in Africa at the end of the colonial era. Alec Smith spent the decades before and after independence in Tanzania working on the mosquitoes which carry disease and on insecticidal methods of controlling them. In 1950 he went to Ukara island in Lake Victoria to work on the mosquitoes which carry filarial worms, the cause of elephantiasis. There he first acquired the nickname Bwana Dudu from which the book’s principle title is derived. He then went to the Pare district to participate, during the late 1950ts, in the important Pare-Taveta scheme, in which residual deposits of the insecticide dieldrin were sprayed on the inside surfaces of the walls and roofs of houses to kill mosquitoes as they rested before or after biting. It is rather shaming to present-day medical entomologists to note that the Pare-Taveta scheme, with 1950’s technology, did a better job in suppressing malaria and the child mortality which it causes than anything which has been achieved in recent years anywhere in tropical Africa.

Around the time of Tanzanian independence Alec Smith and his wife moved to Arusha where he was on the staff, and later Director, of the Tropical Pesticides Research Institute. This Institute is intended to act as a base for evaluating insecticides, herbicides etc. for use throughout Africa, and beyond, against insects of medical importance, as well as agricultural pests of all kinds. Among his other achievements Alec Smith developed ingenious designs of experimental hut for the thorough evaluation of insecticides which repel and/or kill mosquitoes. Groups of these huts were built at Magugu, beside the road from Arusha towards Dodoma, and at Taveta on the Tanzania-Kenya border. These huts, built in the early 1960rs, are useful to researchers to this day.

Despite the book’s subtitle ‘a fight against malaria in Africa’, these important achievements are dealt with quite briefly and most of the book is devoted to an often very detailed account of what it was like for a young British couple to live in upcountry stations and in Arusha in colonial Tanganyika and in newly independent Tanzania. Matters such as amateur theatricals and tennis tournaments which apparently occupied much of the spare time of the hard-working British expatriates of yesteryear, are given much prominence. After leaving Tanzania in 1973 Alec Smith took up W.H.O. postings in southern Africa, Nigeria and Geneva. The period was very productive – the still current W.H.0 manual on chemical control of vector insects was compiled at this time by Alec Smith. He also claims credit for the idea of impregnating mosquito bednets with pyrethroid insecticides, which is the currently most popular, and rapidly spreading, method of protection against malaria mosquitoes. The roots of this idea can (as with most good ideas) be traced to several sources (repellent treated clothing in the USSR and USA , DDT treated bednets used in the Second World War, pyrethroid treated clothing in North America and insecticide treated bednets in China and in francophone Africa). However, Alec Smith certainly deserves credit for presenting the idea to a W.H.O. meeting and having it endorsed and propagated through widely-read W.H.O. manuals.
Chris Curtis

LAND TENURE REFORM IN EAST AFRICA: GOOD, BAD OR UNIMPORTANT? T C Pinckney and P K Kimuyu. Journal of African Economics. Vol 3. No 1. March 1994. 28 pages.

Despite its ambitious title this 1991/92 study was based on only about 115 households each in similar coffee-growing communities with very different historical backgrounds in Kenya and Tanzania. The authors compare the individual smallholder property rights developed in Kenya, which they conclude were cost ineffective, with the policy of abolition of private land titles by Tanzania after independence. Coffee had been developed in Tanzania as an African cash crop from about 1905, with its greatest expansion after 1920 whereas in Kenya it was developed as a ‘European’ crop, with prevention by the ‘settlers’ of ‘African’ development pre-1946 except in the remote districts of Meru and Kisii. Thereafter expansion was inhibited by the Mau Mau Emergency and the government’s programme of consolidating the numerous fragmented smallholdings.

The surveys were chosen from clusters which had been sampled in national surveys in the late 1970’s and again in 1982-83 in the Kenya district of Murang’a and above Moshi in Tanzania. The land holdings averaged two acres in Murangfa and four acres on Kilimanjaro, half in the coffee/banana zone and half below where annual crops are grown. The purpose of the study was to compare the individual land tenure under Kenya’s programme of consolidation of fragmented smallholdings, which was aimed at encouraging effective crop husbandry through possible access to credit and better security of investment, with Tanzania’s nationalisation and prohibition of purchase, sale or rental of land. While the Kenyans appreciated land consolidation, the authors consider that the funds needed for the subsequent land registration could have been much better spent because land titling did not lead to any increase in land-secured credit, partly because of failure to develop it. The authors did not examine the issue of indigenous tenure systems versus individualisation. The argument is about small farm tenure. Kenya embarked on its programme of consolidating densely fragmented smallholdings and the registration of land titles in 1956 and the prograiame has continued to this day, .even in remote areas. They started in areas with good potential for cash crop development – coffee, tea, pyrethrum and export of horticultural crops. The study does not consider or evaluate the benefits of economic crop development.

The authors find that densely populated communities as in Kenya may lead to landlessness and poverty. In Tanzania, the emphasis was on equity which demanded that land should became state property leaving a situation of laissez faire. In fact, in the area of Tanzania under study, land under permanent cultivation (coffee/bananas) was personalised for people to cultivate as long as they wished and land was still inheritable by sons, thus the tenure was as good as freehold. So, while the two countries have pursued extremes in land policy, the authors have come down on the side of Tanzania!
R J M Swynnerton

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NGUMI HILLS: IRON AGE AND EARLIER CERAMICS.
Carolyn Thorp. Azania. Vol 27. 23 pages. 1992 DRIVE SLOW SLOW – ENDESHA POLEPOLE. Carlotta Johnson.1994. 91 pages. £6. Obtainable from Jane Carroll, Britain-Tanzania Society (which will receive receipts from sales), 69 Lambert Road, London SW2 5BB. An account of a return to Tanzania after 17 years. The author describes it as a very personal account of belonging and not belonging and recommends it to anyone who recalls their own youthful contribution to the country, how little they learned at the time and how much they have realised since.

STYLISTIC APPROACHES TO E KEZILAHABI’S NOVELS AND POETRY.
Elena Bertoncini-Zubkova. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere. Vol 31. 1992. 62 pages.

MOSQUES, MERCHANTS AND LANDOWNERS IN ZANZIBAR STONE TOWN.
Abdul Sheriff. Azania. Vol 27. 1992. 20 pages.

DECENTRALISATION, PARTICIPATION AND SPATIAL EQUITY IN RURAL
TANZANIA: A COMMENT by Joseph Semboja and Ole Therkildsen. World Development. Vol 22. No 5. 1994. 4 pages.

THE SOUTHERN AFRCIAN ENVIRONMENT: PROFILES OF THE SADC
COUNTRIES. P O’Keefe and others. Earthscan Publications. 1993. 354 pages. Environmental problems faced by nine countries including Tanzania.

CHANGES IN BLOOD TRANSFUSION PRACTICES AFTER THE INTRODUCTION
OF CONCENSUS GUIDLINES IN MWANZA REGION. J Vos and others. AIDS Vol 8 No 8. August 1994. 6 pages.

A COMMUNITY MODEL OF AFRICAN POLITICS: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
NIGERIA AND TANZANIA. G Hyden and D C Williams. Comparative
Studies in Society and History. 36. (1). January 1994. 28
pages.

EAST AFRICA: A TRAVEL SURVIVAL KIT. G Crowther. Lonely Planet.
1994. 32 pages.

COMMUNITY NUTRITION FOR EASTERN AFRICA. Ann Burgess and
others. African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF). 286
pages. 1994. f 4.65 + p&p from TALC, P 0 Box 49, St Albans,
Herts AL1 4AX. A short up-to-date low-cost practical nutrition
manual for community-based workers.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LAND REFORM IN ZANZIBAR. I F Shao.
Dar es Salaam University Press. 1992. 106 pages. £6.50.

AIDS EDUCATION FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN TANZANIA: AN
EVALUATION STUDY. Knut-Inge Klepp. AIDS 9 (8) August 1994. 6
pages.

INDIGENOUS FARMER-MANAGED IRRIGATION IN SONJO, TANZANIA.
Geographical Journal. 160 (1). March 1994. 15 pages.
COST-EFECTIVENESS OF CHEMOTHERAPY FOR SPUTUM SMEAR-POSITIVE

PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS IN MALAWI, MOZAMBIQUE AND TANZANIA.
Eric de Jonge and others. International Journal of
Health Planning and Management. 9 (2). April-June 1994. 30 ps.

(Tanzanian Affairs has information about many more recent publications but due to pressure on space these will be listed in the next issue – Editor)

LETTERS

HISTORICAL DICTIONARY
I am at present working on the second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Tanzania for Scarecrow Press. As I would like to include an entry on the Britain-Tanzania Society I was hoping you could provide me with some information about your society.. . . . .I would also like to know when the Bulletin of Tanzanian Affairs started publication as I want to include it in the periodicals list.
Thomas Ofcansky
Arlington, Virginia, USA

THE NAME OF A MOUNTAIN
Thanks to Mr Duff for his response to my letter concerning the Morogoro mountain Mguru (ya) ndege. I should like to know more about the ‘upupu’ (macuna bean) which deterred people from hillwalking In the Morogoro region. Could this plant be the source of the penetrating thorns which dogged our ascent and which are still embedded in my hiking socks to this day?

It was intriguing to learn the local belief that Mindu was the home of a large snake. My ascent of Mindu in 1992 revealed no such serpent but future climbers should not assume that there are no snakes on this mountain. My father and colleagues at Sokoine University reported a number of species of snakes on and around her slopes and indeed, from time to time, reptiles found at the university were released there. Perhaps your readers could also throw light on the name ‘mafiga’, a village not far from Mindu and my parents’ home from 1991-93. We learned two theories as to how it earned this name which in Kiswahili means the three stones for supporting a cooking pot. First, the village was said to be a popular place for collecting good cooking stones which did not crack in the heat of a fire. Second, it is positioned between three mountains (Mindu, Mguru ndege and the Ulugurus), each apparently representing one of three stones of a giant mafiga. Or is there an entirely different explanation?
Max Cooper