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ZANZIBAR – THE SITUATION DETERIORATES

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Tensions in Zanzibar have continued despite the recent change in Chief Minister (Bulletin No. 30). They reached crisis point on May 13, 1988 when a large demonstration (mostly of young people) approached State House in Zanzibar and presidential guards opened fire. Two people were killed and several others seriously injured. Damage was done to an office building and Party vehicles.

Tanzania’s very open press has covered the story in some detail. The following items are taken from various articles in the Daily and Sunday News.

April 9. KAWAWA EXPOSES ANTI-PARTY MOVES. CCM Party Secretary General
had stated in Pemba that some individuals in the Zanzibar Government were opposing the Party. Some people had even torn up Party flags and were threatening the people.

April 11. ENEMIES NOISE WON’T AMEND CONSTITUTION. Mr. Kawawa had been asked in Zanzibar if the Constitution could be amended to allow more Zanzibaris on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party. Yes, he had replied, but only if it was the result of a well discussed and fully considered need. The need could not come from outside the country. Mr Kawawa complained that there had been lots of literature discrediting Tanzania’s top leaders particularly Party Chairman Nyerere.

April 15. EXPOSE AGITATORS. Zanzibar Chief Minister Dr. Omar Ali Juma had urged Zanzibaris to expose agitators so that the Government could take action against them.

Friday May 13 after prayers. The demonstration.

May 15. SEIF HAMAD, SIX OTHERS FIRED. PROBE ON ZANZIBAR STARTS. Former Chief Minister Seif Hamad the Zanzibar Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development (who was interviewed in Bulletin No. 27), the Zanzibar Deputy Minister for Finance, Planning and Economic Affairs (both of the latter are also members of Tanzania’s NEC), the Deputy Speaker of the Zanzibar House of Representatives, a Union MP and two members of the Zanzibar House had all been sacked. This action had been taken as a result of a report submitted to the NEC by Mr. Kawawa after his April visit to Zanzibar. These people were said to have worked to destabilise the Union and the Party.

May 16. ISLES DEMO CULPRITS FACE GOVERNMENT ACTION. President Mwinyi had announced that those who had participated in the demonstration would be punished. Apparently the demonstrators had attacked remarks made by Mrs Sofia Kawawa. Chairman of the UWT (the Tanzanian Women’s organisation) in Dodoma on May 7th to the effect that it was high time Tanzania critically examined customary laws, traditions and Islamic practices which oppressed women. President Mwinyi said that Mrs Kawawa’s views had been personal and in no way reflected the position of the Party and Government. Three Muslim Sheikhs had admitted to devoting the greater pan of their sermons on the day of the demonstration to Mrs Kawawa’ s remarks.

May 18. WAKIL BLAMES EXILES FOR ILLEGAL DEMO. Zanzibar President Wakil had said that self-exiled Government critics tried to use religion in their schemes to recolonise the Isles. They had made great inroads in the Civil Service and had polarised it into opposing camps. He had directed the Security Services to crack down on unruly youths.

May 19. 29 ISLES ILLEGAL DEMONSTRATORS APPEAR IN COURT. Eight people in Pemba had also been questioned about an attempt to set fire to a Government vehicle. Zanzibaris holding anti-Government video and radio cassettes were threatened by the Government with legal action.

May 21. SIEVE CCM MEMBERS. The Zanzibar Chief Minister had called for a mechanism to review regularly CCM member’s records to ensure their loyalty to the Party.

May 23. REPS (in the Zanzibar House of Representatives) SALUTE NEC ON EXPULSIONS (from the party). We must stop the habit, one Representative had said, that the Mainland is all out to swallow Zanzibar.

May 28. TEAM TO PROBE ISLES DEMO. A seven-member Special Commission had been set up by the Government and would be under the Chairmanship of the former Chief justice of Zanzibar, Mr. Abdulwahib Masoud Borafya.

June 4. ISLES CONCERNED OVER PLOT TO BURN CLOVES.

June 15. COURT FREES 15 IN ISLES ILLEGAL DEMO. Fifteen of the 43 alleged demonstrators had been set free due to lack of evidence against them.

June 21. NO COMPROMISE WAKIL TELLS ENEMIES OF UNITY

Africa Events in its June/July issue, under the heading ‘The Twenty-Five Year Itch’ wrote that “A twenty five year itch is a nuisance some people have learnt to take with stoic dignity. A quarter of a century of life with a bone stuck in one’s craw is, however, a different kettle of fish … When Julius Nyerere cajoled Abeid Karume, Zanzibar’s first President, into signing the articles of unity in April 1964, little did he imagine that the tiny offshore islands, no bigger than the smallest county on the mainland, were to be his eternal bugbear. The demonstration ….. was yet another flare to illuminate a long-standing trend of political tension in the rather wobbly relationship between the central authorities in Dar and the people of the islands …. most of the islanders are for the Union but in their lexicon, integration (with the Mainland) is a dirty word ….. Chief Minister Dr. Omar Juma has conceded that following the recent unrest, Party membership had plumetted by 85% .. “with this loss of support for the Party and the breakdown of intelligence gathering through the ten cell leaders the chances of influencing the islanders …. seem dicey.”

Under the heading ‘Rumble on the Island’ African Concord (June 14) wrote that “The Spice Island of Zanzibar is becoming a cake too hot to be handled by Tanzania’s Union Government, the Isles Government itself and the ruling CCM Party.”

According to Africa Confidential (June 17) “Zanzibar is now presenting President Mwinyi with his most serious challenge yet – and no one in power seems to have any idea what to do about it.” – Editor

TANZANIA IN THE MEDIA

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THE MERCHANT OF HOPE
In its 14 page, illustrated main cover story Africa Events (June/July 1988 issue) referred to President Mwinyi’s “cuddly, man-next- door persona, full of caring, tact, humility and, above all, like the merchant of hope, an almost oleaginous knack of making one see only the positive”.

In an interview the President was reminded that it was almost three years since he had assumed the presidency. Apart from reviving the economy, what other tasks had been occupying his mind. President Mwinyi replied: “When I was elected President I was handed a peaceful and united country. So, besides making sure that Tanzanians do not go hungry, my other preoccupation is to consolidate our unity. I found the country in a peaceful and secure state and I wish it to continue to be so – if not more – when my term expires”.

The next question concerned Zanzibaris who are apparently not in favour of the Union (with the mainland), President Mwinyi replied that the islanders are very much in favour of the Union. “It is possible that there are a few people who are opposed to it; and it’s not that they do not love the country but it is because they love themselves more …. after the revolution, very many young people, especially from Pemba, migrated to Dar es Salaam where they ventured into business and were very successful …. So some of these young Pembans nowadays have fleets of taxis, some own beautiful houses in Dar es Salaam. For example, the majority of houses situated at Sharifu Shamba are owned by Zanzibaris, especially from Pemba. They are not interfered with, they are not harassed and they are doing very well. These opportunities were not there before the revolution .. so is it true that these very people could be against the Union? … However, it is possible that there are a handful of people… who are against it. But noise and disturbances are like salt – it doesn’t have to be much for one to get the feel or the taste of it.”

The next question concerned the grievance of some Zanzibaris that they were not consulted about the Union. It had been arranged between the late President Karume and the erstwhile President Nyerere. President Mwinyi explained the background. “Nyerere had always had this idea of having a federation between Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar,… President Nyerere had gone to Nairobi to persuade the then President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, to accept the idea and to be the first head of the Federation. The idea was net dismissed out of hand but the leaders of Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya did not arrive at any conclusive agreement. So when Nyerere got back to Dar es Salaam, Karume visited him. Nyerere briefed Karume on what had happened at the Nairobi meeting and asked him to feel free, if he wished, to join in when he was ready. Karume jumped at the idea and said that he was ready to join there and then”. it is universally common for such infant ideas to be born by either a single person or a few persons … after the Union, in 1965, there was an election for the President of the Union … the Zanzibaris overwhelmingly voted yes except in one constituency in Pemba (Ziwani) where there were seven hundred no votes. We voted yes once more in 1970… and in 1980”.

The President was asked why he had said that those against the Union were following their own selfish interests. The President replied that amongst several underground publications being imported into Zanazibar from overseas at present was a red booklet from Denmark published by Tanzanians resident there. The words in the publications were the same ones being used by those few who are in Zanzibar. Even Their placards contain the same words…those who are against the Union are people like the ones who are in Denmark”.

President Mwinyi was asked finally what type of Tanzania would he like to see in years to come. He replied that he would like to see a Tanzania full of prosperity, “Because prosperity cures evils such as envy, jealousy, hatred, chaos and incitement, Prosperity brings contentment. And once one is contented, one is bound to be happy”

ENGLISH AND KISWAHILI IN EDUCATION
In a strongly worded letter to the Editor of Africa Events (June/July issue) F.E.M.K. Senkoro referred, under the heading ‘The Last of the Empire’ to what he described as a rather strange belief that the standard of education in Tanzania had fallen due the poor state of the English language in schools and colleges and to former President Nyerere’s reference to the importance of English as ‘the Kiswahili of the world’. “The British Government, through her unofficial representative’, the British Council, was, of course, very excited and overjoyed to see the old glory being rekindled. Since that time no stone has been left unturned. Scholarships have been given to young people in education to go to the former mother country to study further about the teaching of English language. Aid and grants to provide Tanzanian schools with teaching materials are coming forth like they never did before. What ecstasy it will be to see, once again, Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, Allan Quartermaine and, of course, Shakespeare, among others, being forced down the throats of the Tanzanian kids in the holy mission of trying to salvage our education from the deep pits it has fallen into …….. the state of Kiswahili vis-a-vis ‘the other ethnolects and foreign languages…do indeed show that among the culprits, English language and its presence as a medium is disruptive and an impediment to the smooth development of education in the country …as the language of colonial heritage, attitudes have turned against English since it is seen as the language of ‘kasumba’ (the brainwashed mind). An inordinate use of it may be taken to identify a person as not having been born again in the spirit of the new man that Tanzania had intended to create with the Arusha Declaration ..

Dr. Senkoro was commenting on an earlier article in Africa Events by Dr. S. Yahya-Othman in which he had stressed that the present system of education in two languages in Tanzanian schools and, in particular, the sudden change from Swahili medium in primary education to English in secondary education was not proving successful. He stated that the performance of students in English had fallen appallingly; he quoted a study which had indicated that in 1986 50% of Form IV leavers had scored F in English. Students in secondary schools were not learning when the language of instruction was English. The continued use of English at the higher levels meant that students did not have the time to devote to the conscious use of new Kiswahili terms.

The argument Dr. Yahya-Othman said, was not that it is impossible to modernise with two international languages operating in the school – experience of Canada and Switzerland squash that argument; it is not that it is impossible to modernise using a foreign language as the medium of instruction – all former colonies are doing that; the argument is that it is extremely difficult to modernise with English as medium under the present socio-economic conditions in Tanzania. And the most crucial of these conditions is the continued equivocation relating to a switch in medium from English to Kiswahili.

A HUNTER’S PARADISE
Tanzania is still the best hunting country in the world according to the American publication ‘Hunting Report’. Tanzania still has greater game populations and huge concessions that are the wildest, most satisfying to hunt in all of Africa. Safari companies in Tanzania offer the best run and most luxurious hunting experiences available today according to the magazine.

BRITISH VISIT FOR LEADER OF IMF REFORM MODEL
The Daily Telegraph was the only British daily newspaper to notice President Mwinyi’s visit to Britain. It noted on June 6 1988 that “Since he took office, British aid to Tanzania has risen from almost nothing to around £30 million per year, making it one of the biggest recipients of aid in sub-Saharan Africa. The aid followed Mr. Mwinyi’s decision to adopt IMF proposals for recovery after years of socialist planning under Dr. Nyerere left the economy in shambles …. Britain sees Tanzania as a test case for economic reform linked to an IMF plan.”

DIPLOMATS OF ROCK
It was under this heading that the Independent (July 15th) reported on the meeting in June 1988 in Bristol of WOMAD, the World of Music and Dance. The article was accompanied by a large photograph illustrating the wide girth, enormous stomach, bejeweled body and dreadlocked hair style of a 41 year old Zairean singer/guitarist named Remmy Ongala. Mr. Ongala, who moved to Tanzania 10 years ago, was described as Tanzania’s biggest star. “But in Tanzania” the paper went on “rook stardom does not mean Ferrari’s, limitless cocaine and guitar-shaped swimming pools. Rather, Tanzanian musicians occupy a lowly position in society; groups are run by businessmen who own the instruments and pay their players a salary. Financial success (or just survival) is a matter of a nightly grind of live dance hall dates ….. The delicious, irresistibly danceable musical concoction, strongly based on the seventies period of Zairean rumba with a zest of rougher Tanzanian rhythm, has already had audiences from Cheltenham to Dundee jumping.”

PEOPLE FORGET
Under the heading: Tanzania – Three Faces of Change’ World Bank News (June 23, 1988) interviewed a lady co-manager of an agricultural Extension programme in Morogoro, a university professor and a Maasai village chairman and asked them for their impressions of Tanzania’s Economic Reform Programme. All felt it had brought much benefit. The Professor said “Yes, prices seem high now; but I don’t agree that, in real terms, that they are higher than they were prior to the programme. People forget” he said “that a few years ago it could take you a week to find a bar of soap, a month to find a kilo of cooking oil, and, if you were lucky enough to find the goods, you had to pay exorbitant, black market prices.”

NSEKELA TEAM PROPOSES NEW GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE

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The Presidential Salaries Review Commission (The Nsekela Team) has recommended many changes in government structures in its report recently released.

Amongst the proposals are the following:
– Abolition of the Ministry of Community Development, Culture, Youth and Sports;
– Principal Secretary posts should be fairly permanent appointments and renamed Permanent Secretary;
– The P.S. in the President’s Office should be re-designated Chief Secretary;
– A National Planning Commission should be set up;
– Information Services should be transferred to the President’s Office from the Prime Minister’s office;
– The activities of the Presidential Standing Committee on Parastatal Organisations should be transferred to a new Public Enterprise Board;
– The Anti-Corruption Squad should be part of the Police;
– The number of Diplomatic Missions in Africa should be reduced;
– Regional and District Commissioner posts should be in the Civil Service;

The Government is considering the report – Daily News.

THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAMME – PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS

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In his budget speech on June 16, 1988 the Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Planning summarised the situation reached at the end of the second year of the three year Economic Recovery Programme as being ‘generally on track’, though some fundamental economic programmes persisted and would take time and perseverance to overcome. For the second year running the economy as a whole grew faster than an increase in population estimated at 3.3% p.a. Growth at 3.9% indeed fell short of the rate 4.5% envisaged in the Programme, still more of the 5% average rate assumed in the Five Year Development Plan beginning in July 1988.

There is, however, a possibility that the official calculation of growth rate (GDP) underestimates the true position owing to the emergence of small scale and informal activities, which are not adequately represented in the published statistics.

Important Gains
At this stage certain important gains can be recorded. The production of food crops is substantially greater than in previous years and the prospects for further growth are good if the weather holds. Consumer goods are again widely available. A tentative start has been made with the rehabilitation of industry, with textile production increasing from a very low level by over 20% above the previous year, rubber products by 49% and cement by 15%. Industry’s contribution to export earnings, though still modest, rose by nearly 75% between fiscal 1986-87 and fiscal 1988, partly stimulated by the search for foreign exchange to finance industrial raw materials (the ‘Export to Import’ scheme). A beginning has also been made with the rehabilitation of internal transport by giving priority in the allocation of foreign exchange to the purchase of spare parts for the railways and for road vehicles and the procurement of 1,040 new lorries. In general, expectations appear to remain buoyant.

Communications Infrastructure
But against these positive manifestations of recovery some very serious problems lie ahead. Long stretches of the main trunk roads are in a deplorable condition and deteriorating, necessitating in some areas complete relaying and exacting a fearfull toll on vehicles. Parts of the central railway line are in a poor state, resulting in derailments and the number of locomotives in working order fell from 134 in 1986 to 111 in 1987. In view of the critical importance of communications in Tanzania the rectification of this situation is clearly an urgent necessity

The grave difficulties in the way of closing the gap between imports and exports have been explained in some detail in Bulletin No. 28. The programme envisaged an increase of 11.6% in export earnings in 1987; in fact the foreign exchange income from this source during 1987 remained almost the same as in 1986, though it appears that in the following half year an improvement was recorded, showing a 9.3% increase in fiscal 1987-88 over the previous year. It seems, therefore, that the measures taken to boost export earnings, such as the ‘Export to Import’ scheme and the ‘Own Funds’ scheme may be yielding some results. Nevertheless, the trade deficit of $ 745 million remained at nearly twice the size of export income. These figures probably deserve some correction owing to the unrecorded income believed to have slipped through under the trade liberalisation scheme.

Agriculture
Export volumes of all the main items traded except cotton, sisal and tea fell during 1987, due in large measure to the deterioration of roads and vehicles, and a serious reduction in earnings was only averted by a dramatic rise of 37% in the volume of cotton exported, resulting in a 37% increase in dollar earnings from this source. Sisal, on the other hand, despite a 50% increase in the volume exported, suffered an 8% reduction in earnings on account of a 39% fall in world price. In the case of coffee, a 20% fall in the volume exported encountered a 39% drop in world prices, producing a fall in dollar earnings of 51%. This reduction has been attributed to the coffee berry disease, an insufficient supply of fertilisers and a shortage of vehicles. These experiences well illustrate how unsatisfactory it is to rely predominantly on the traditional commodity markets and demonstrates the urgency of export diversification.

Cotton provides a typical example of the difficulty. Production in 1987 was unexpectedly high and the prospects for further enhanced production encouraging. But processing was held up by the inability of the ageing ginneries to operate at full capacity and delivery was impeded by tbe shortage of lorries and rail wagons. As a result, raw cotton has cluttered up the warehouses and village stores, getting in the way of the 1988 crop. The UK Government has offered help with the improvement of ginning capacity in the hope of getting the 1987 crop out of the way before the 1988 harvest.

The increase in stocks also had its implications for the money supply. Substantial funds at high rates of interest had to be found to finance these stocks, with the result of a large and unwelcome increase in bank credit fuelling inflation. It is indeed a paradox that any increase in export commodities is liable to make fresh demands on the money supply and to counteract the government’s efforts to bring inflation under control. The only solution to this problem lies in increasing dramatically the supply of consumer goods, but the concentration of resources on export industries and the rehabilitation of the infrastructure renders such measures highly unlikely for the time being. As in so many aspects of economic policy, the Government has had to seek a balance between competing objectives.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1988-89 BUDGET
– wage increases; new Government minimum wage Shs 1,644;
– Reductions in income tax; minimum taxable income Shs 1,500;
– No duty on agricultural inputs and drugs;
– 100% duty on luxurious and conspicuous consumption goods;
– day school fees up (Shs 750 to 1,500 p.a.); boarding Shs 3,000;
– beer up Shs 5 to Shs 91; cigarettes up Shs 1 per packet;
– airport service charge increased to Shs 300;
– increase in cost of visas, plane charters, road tolls;
– new tax of Shs 20 on each video rental;
– price controlled items reduced from 22 to 12.

Inflation and Defence Against its Effects
The choice for the government is further complicated by the dangers inherent in the continuing 30% annual increase in the cost or living experienced by urban dwellers in mainland Tanzania. With the continuing slow drift downwards in the value of the shilling some inflationary pressures are inevitable, but the level of the index is much more dependent on the price of food and consumption goods, many of which are now outside the scope of controls. The target inflation rate of 25% by June 1988 in the Economic Recovery Programme has not been reached. High inflation increases costs, jeopardises efforts at industrial Rehabilitation, whittles away the incentive advantages of increased Producer prices for agricultural products and, finally, and most seriously, threatens whole populations with destitution unless countervailing measures are taken. The government has taken some steps to mitigate the effects of inflation on urban dwellers. First, on two occasions, reductions in income tax have left all wage earners with more take home pay and further changes in the tax structure will raise the tax threshold to Shs 1,500 per month. Secondly, a 20% increase in the lowest salaries has been announced, with smaller percentage increases in the higher ranges culminating in a 10% rise in salaries above Shs 6,000 a month. Thirdly, following the recommendations of the Nsekela Report, fringe benefits will be paid to government servants consisting of a Rent Assistance for those not in government houses amounting to 10% of salary and a Transport Allowance for government workers in Dar es Salaam of Shs 350 per month. These measures will help significantly to offset the higher cost of living for the time being.

However, the most important defence against the effects of inflation has consisted of measures taken by the people themselves by seeking extra opportunities for employment (moonlighting), or by cultivating a patch of ground. It is striking how far such measures are being espoused by middle and upper income employees, who have benefited least from a succession of salary changes. Such activities gain in importance as inflation bites into spending power and even causes troublesome absenteeism during office hours. No government can ignore these effects and the dangers of social unrest that may result from inflation. On the other hand. too generous a compensation for a fall in the standard of living could seriously unbalance the budget and generate new inflationary pressures. Here again, government must seek a middle path.

On the whole, in spite of disappointments, the Minister was justified in describing the Economic Recovery Programme as ‘on track’. Where performances fell short involved important aspects of government policy, such as export generation and the control of inflation. But the experience of the programme so far has drawn attention to three aspects that must be kept in mind. First, there is the development of unexpected consequences like the side effects of a healing drug. The log jam in the processing and transport of cotton and its effects on the inflationary trend is a case in point. Secondly, it is always hard to estimate the time scale involved in the implementation of policy decisions. At this two-year juncture in the Programme many developments are in train that have not yet been revealed in the official figures. One example is export promotion, the results of which are only just beginning to show up in the statistics of foreign exchange earnings. Breaking into foreign markets with new products is always a tricky business and in Tanzania the necessary skills are in short supply. Diversification calls for what may a:most be described as a cultural shift and such changes in outlook are not encompassed quickly or easily. Thirdly, no new decisions about exports can be taken in isolation from decisions in other spheres. Money for export may be flowing from the hives but the flow may be wholly dammed up by the absence of special export containers. Cotton may be there in profusion, but the bounties of nature will not reach the ports unless something is done about the ginneries.

SUMMARY OF UK AID – £70 MILLION SINCE THE IMF AGREEMENT
– Spare parts and equipment for road and rail transport;
– Veterinary drugs and agricultural chemicals;
– Rehabilitation of the Tanzania Railways Corporation;
– Second Phase of the Southern Region Health Project;
– English language teaching programme;
– Links between British and Tanzanian universities;
– Maintenance of the Songea-Makambako road;
– The medium term National AIDS Plan;
– Help to improve ginning capacity;
– Land planning, crop storage, pest control, agricultural research.

With all these considerations in mind, the impression remains that the government is managing the Economic Recovery Programme with skill and fortitude in the face of intense difficulties. One essential component is of course the support from outside, which has so far been generous in intention, but in some cases slow and cumbersome in implementation. The reduction of bureaucratic delays and further steps to relieve the debt burden (Bulletin No. 30) will notably assist in securing a successful outcome to the government’s efforts. It is hoped that these improvements in the performance of the international community will be forthcoming.
J. Roger Carter

THE AIDS HORROR AT KANYIGO

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In an emotive article in the Sunday News Sylvester Hanga has reported on a visit to a village 25 kilometres north of Bukoba.
“When artillery bombs from Idi Amin’s forces did not inflict heavy casualties in Kanyigo many of its inhabitants ruled out the possibility of another horror in the near future. They were proved wrong seven years later …. some believe that it was at this place that AIDS mushroomed to the rest of the country.

Houses have been abandoned and some vandalised by departing suspects. The majority of the 10 cell leaders have been left with less than half the number of households they are expected to head. The reason is simple; some have died of AIDS and the rest have taken refuge in neighbouring villages.

Although no survey has been officially carried out to establish the exact number of deaths … a random count of houses with no life inside tells the remaining part of the horror.

Some of the children are seriously malnourished. Some have no parents as they have long been hastily buried …in 1985 people used to turn up in dozens to give the deceased their last respects; not now … some say ‘How could we bury two people from the same roof in the span of one day?’ It has never happened before, at least, not in Kanyigo; not even during the war with Amin’

This is the AIDS era and Kanyigo is witnessing it more than any other part of Kagera region.

Meanwhile in Dar es Salaam Second Vice-President Wakil has launched a five year National AIDS Control Programme and the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Chidua, has been giving AIDS casualty figures from other parts of the country. Singida 18, Musoma 18, Arusha 12 since last year; Kagera region 289 in 1986 alone. The Minister said that he believed that only between 10 and 13% of AIDS patients in Tanzania have reported to hospital.

A FAVOURITE STATION FOR EXPATRIATES

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Under large headline ‘Forex (Foreign Exctange) Scandal Unfolds’ the ,Sunday News (July 10, 1988) wrote that ‘With four domestic servants (US$ 40 per month), lunch for four people at US$ 20, a fully furnished four bedroom bungalow at US$500 per month and a combined water and power bill of US$ 10, Tanzania has become a paradise for expatriates and diplomats.

The country is also a favourite station for airline crews who act as couriers of smuggled trophies and precious minerals .. , .. at least five embassies also do so as an unofficial, institutionalised practice … these missions also deal in gold, diamonds, rubies, trophies, drugs and hard currency.

The diplomats change their currency using street corner, hotel bar hangers-on or even innocent looking cigarette vendors ….

An official of the Foreign Branch of the National Bank of Commerce said that withdrawal of money from foreign accounts had dwindled over the past few years and he wondered how foreign clients were meeting their expenses.

This is the sad story of all our developing countries and the culprits are from the left and the right, said one African diplomat with the UN Office in Dar ES Salaam’.

On July 17th, again on the front page, the Sunday News headlined ‘More … and More Revealed in Forex Scandal’. “The US dollar is fast becoming the unofficial medium of exchange within Tanzania. … the exercise has turned a sizeable number of sharp- minded’ Tanzanians into millionaires literally overnight … some people have as many as five houses – all in low density areas and rented out for dollars …

The high crime rate in Dar es Salaam has made dog keeping a necessity for many foreigners. Some ‘sharp minded’ people have therefore started selling puppies in dollars….”

WHY NO TELEVISION?

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This question has often been asked about broadcasting in mainland Tanzania. In part, the answer lies in the establishment of radio in the last decade of colonial Tanganyika, and in the sequence of events, pressures, conflicts and personalities in the immediate run-up to independence and very shortly afterwards.

Regular broadcasting from Dar es Salaam began in 1951; it had few listeners, temporary equipment and was acutely short of African staff to be trained for operational duties. Help came with money from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund and with engineering staff seconded from the BBC. By 1955 transmitter coverage was practically nationwide in 1956 legislation was enacted to establish the Tanganyika Broadcasting Corporation – the TBC.

The dynamism to build up the new organisation came from Tom Chalmers, also from the BBC, who was experienced in both radio and television. Earlier he had been the first Director of Broadcasting in Nigeria. There he had nurtured national broadcasting from a tiny operation serving the capital, Lagos, into a nationwide service with national and regional programmes. His task in Tanganyika, was perhaps more daunting there was less money available from the colonial coffers and getting that money released from the Treasury was excruciatingly slow; there was a very limited number of Africans with the educational background appropriate for training as producers, engineers and administrators. In February 1961 he could write to former colleagues in the BBC ‘last year there were only 64 African graduates in the whole country – and I have three!

Chalmers was in a hurry. He was sensitive to the gathering speed of political change in Africa. He wanted more than one national service to cover the country and to have regional stations outside Dar es Salaam as well as school broadcasting. In Nigeria he had been instrumental in putting political broadcasts on the air; it was not long before Dar es Salaam was broadcasting (in English and Swahili) reports on the day’s business in the Legislative Council.

In his annual report for 1959 Chalmers recorded that Julius Nyerere had broadcast on several occasions, especially in December; political leaders had been interviewed and had taken part in discussion programmes, and it was hoped that TBC would be able in 1961 to establish responsible political broadcasting in all its various forms.

Throughout the annual reports at the time there is recurrent reference to shortages of money. One of the reports, now in BBC Written Archives, was sent with a note of apology for the format – ‘We are too poor to print it’. The sub-title is ‘How to run a broadcasting service without spending any money’.

The speed of final political advancement presented acute problems. Chalmers was anxious that he should hand over to an African with some experience and professional training in broadcasting.

Let us turn now to January 1962 – one month after Independence. TBC was under sharp attack in the Swah11i press – not least for the BBC’s influence over it. Clearly Chalmers had to give way to an African. He moved swiftly. He obtained approval for Mr. M Mdoe, the Director of Programmes, to succeed him; Chalmers would stay as Technical Adviser.

One of Mdoe’s first acts was to circulate a memorandum to all staff calling for a change in mental attitudes and the Africanisation of all the programme output NOW. That implied much more than dropping the relay of BBC programmes; it meant Africanising the content of programmes. “We are now able to stand on our own feet; let us do so and take some bold steps forward” Mdoe wrote.

As Technical Adviser Chalmers could detach himself from day to day operations and think strategically. He had kept in touch with Nigeria. He had first-hand information about the television service – ‘First in Africa’ – that the Action Group Government in the Western Region had rushed through with the help of expatriate contractors as a political ploy in 1959; the transmitter outside Lagos would come on the air in time for the Federal elections. This venture triggered off a chain reaction in Nigeria – the other regional governments were thinking how they could counter this – and in Ghana too. That such a service would be almost entirely dependent on a diet of imported films with many Westerns and ‘cops and robbers’ was entirely alien to the concept of building an African broadcasting service for Africans. Chalmers was also fully aware of the technical problems: the need for a reliable and non-fluctuating electricity supply; the likely restriction of television coverage to Dar es Salaam when radio stations were still required for many provincial centres: the problem of servicing television sets; (it was difficult enough in the early 60’s to get a radio repaired); and, above all, the cost.

At that time the newly-independent African countries were being wooed by travelling television salesmen offering package deals to put up a TV station and operate it in its early years. Usually the offer included little local material and much imported film. Just, it was said by facetious critics, two men and a boy with film and lantern slides.

The Government in Dar es Salaam was to be no exception. It too came under massive pressure. In May 1962 Chalmers was able to write ‘we have got some at least of the most influential Ministers and Party officials to see reason’. Government rejected all the offers. Broadcasting was to concentrate on radio and that was to be made an effective instrument for Government – and for the people.
Charles Armour

Mr. CHARLES ARMOUR retired from the BBC in 1981 as Head of School Radio. He was Controller, Western region and Director of Programmes, Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1962. He is grateful to the BBC’c Written Archives Centre for documentation he has been able to study.

MISCELLANY

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THE CASE OF THE ELEPHANT TUSKS – THE VERDICT
The Bulletin described in its last issue a court case in which the Songea Urban Member of Parliament, Ali Yusufu Abdurabi (41) had been accused of being in possession of 105 elephant tusks in his official Landrover.

Thousands of people from Songea town and its outskirts thronged the courtroom and overflowed into the courtyard and later lined the road to catch a glimpse of the MP. Justice Maina said, in giving judgement, that the case was unique since it involved a Member of Parliament who knew the laws of the land which he took part in legislating. The MP, the Judge said, was more aware than anyone else about the importance of conserving trophies and wildlife. To discourage other people from committing similar crimes the offence required a maximum sentence of 15 years, the Judge said.

Later, when the Defence Council pleaded ill health of the accused, the Judge decided to reduce the sentence to nine years.

THE OBSERVER APOLOGISES
Britain’s Observer newspaper has apologised and paid substantial damages to Minister for Energy and Minerals Al-Noor Kassum and the Managing Director of the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, Sylvestor Barongo following a libel case in the Tanzanian High Court. The Observer had alleged, in articles published in 1983, that the two men had received secret commissions on fuel shipments from South Africa to Tanzania – Daily News.

ANOTHER PARASTATAL?
Adam Lusekelo who amuses readers of the Sunday News each weekend has been complaining about the Government’s discrimination against a certain kind of animal.

‘Take the cow for instance. It has two public corporations (parastatals) looking after it. And while walking round town the other day I noticed that even the chicken has a fully fledged parastatal to look after its interests – the National Poultry Company NAPOCO. Which of course means another General Manager, secretaries and sundry others … The kuku will have to pay for the upkeep of the GM, the perfume of the secretaries and the temptations of the gentlemen in the Accounts Department – no wonder the Kuku’s in Dar are not the cheapest in Africa.

But if the kukus and the cows are lucky enough to have entire public corporations formed for them I must speak up for the downtrodden. It is the duty of any self-respecting journalist in the Third World to speak for the downtrodden…
Take the goat for example. We should have a National Goat Corporation… the goat is very resilient animal you know. It doesn’t die during drought, it eats anything from dust to shoe polish to money. One goat ate my twenty bob note – but its meat was damn good to eat. Another thing about the goat is that it multiplies very fast.

Which is why the Government should be very careful in the selection of the GM of the Goat Corporation. The relationship between the GM and the female staff of this corporation should be thoroughly checked …. the idea is to warn the staff of this Corporation that we want the goats to multiply, not the staff.

Rabbits too. A National Rabbit Corporation should be set up soonest. The major qualification of the GM should be to have his ears wide open …… .

TANZANIAN GOATS POPULAR IN UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The United Arab Emirates used to import sheep from Australia but they had to stop according to Mr. Abdalah Jarafu, Managing Director of the International Export Company because of the high fat content of the mutton. Now, he said, Tanzanian goats are proving popular with customers. The whole animal is exported so that customers can see it being slaughtered. The price is the equivalent of US$ 30 per goat.

TANZANIA SECOND IN BIRD EXPORTS
Tanzania is the second largets exporter of birds in Africa, a reputation we shold not be proud of, says a report in Miombo, a newsletter of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST). The report says there is an alarming rise in the number of birds being exported which include Fischer’s lovebirds (Agapornis fischeri) an endemic species found only in Tanzania. Miombo reports that some 39,000 of these birds have been received by major importing countries – Japan, Belgium, West Germany, The Netherlands, UK and USA. The habitat of fischers lovebirds is suffering from deforestation and only Tanzania has the power to prevent its extinction, adds the report.

Meanwhile, the number of Indian House crows in Dar es Salaam has greatly increased causing damage and discomfort to residents – Sunday News

BUNGE OFFICES MOVE TO DODOMA
The Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly has moved to the new capital, Dodoma. This is the first government institution to complete its move. Five ministries are due to move there during the next five years – Daily News.

1,000 TANZANIAN YOUTHS LOOKING FOR SHIPS
1,000 Tanzanian youths have left the country illegally in search of jobs on ships in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Having failed to get jobs many resort to criminal acts and all sorts of evils. Forty-nine youths were repatriated from abroad in the first three months of this year. Some have been fined while others have their cases pending in court – Daily News.

CONDOLENCES
President Mwinyi sent a condolence message to Mrs Thatcher following the explosion at the Piper Alpha Oil Plant in the North Sea – Daily News.

PARLIAMENTARY MATTERS

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The National Assembly has had another marathon budget session. A few extracts from the debates as reported in the Daily News:

The Member for Nzega praised Finance Minister Msuya. “I previously regarded him as a difficult man, but he has come up with a budget for the people.”

The Member for Masasi asked about expansion plans for prisons. Reply: No prisons had been expanded but Tanzania now had 106 prisons including 45 built since Independence.

The Member for Dodoma Urban advised the Government to trade in some of the assets nationalised after the Arusha Declaration to beef up state coffers. There were about 10,000 nationalised buildings in Dar es Salaam alone which could fetch up to Shs 100 billion. “I know this is rather sensitive but I must say it” he is quoted as having said.

A National Member-wanted to know the number of foreign media institutions operating in the country.
Reply: Tass, Novosti Press Agency, Asia and Africa Today, Moscow Radio and Television, Xinhua (China) News Agency and the Peoples Daily, Korean Central News Agency, Kuwaiti News Agency, United Press International Television News, Inter-Press Services (Italy).

The Member for Nzega asked if the Government had any plans to expand the Dodoma Wine Company so that it could consume all grapes to be produced in Dodoma, Iringa, Tabora and Shinyanga regions. Reply: Production at Dodoma is expected to improve tremendously (up to 980 cartons of wine a day) because the Government has assisted the company to buy new machinery, bottles and corks.

The Member for Mwera asked about registration of Ujamaa villages. Reply: There is no village in the country which has been registered as an Ujamaa village. Under the Local Government Act once it is established that most of the social and economic activities of a Village are run along socialist lines the Party Regional Executive may recommend a village to be accorded Ujamaa status. The Deputy Minister for Local Government said that his Ministry had never received any recommendation to that effect since the Arusha Declaration was proclaimed in 1967.

The Member for Meatu and many other members made a strong plea for the Government to announce concrete plans to construct the Dodoma – Mwanza road to reduce reliance on the now erratic Central Railway Line.

The Member for Makete said that Prime Minister and First Vice-President Warioba should explain audit queries raised by the Controller and Auditor General against the 1986/87 accounts of his Office. He mentioned that the Office had spent Shs 54.7 million which was not budgeted, Shs 44.1 million imprest and advances not accounted for and Shs 17.4 million in unvouched expenditure.

At this point Mr. Warioba intervened, saying that the MP should have raised these questions during the debate on the estimates or he should reserve them until the Auditor General’s Report comes up for debate. The Deputy Speaker agreed with the Prime Minister and proceeded to the next item in the estimates.

The Member for Mbeya Rural said that crop marketing boards were agents of exploitation and should be disbanded. He also said that co-operative unions, instead of being agents of change, were increasingly becoming tribal domains. I don’t think it is possible for a person from Mbeya to become the General Manager of the Nyanza CD-operative Union he said.

BOOK REVIEWS

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AFRICA – MY SURGERY. Leader Stirling (former Minister of Health in the Tanzanian Government). Churchman Publishing Ltd. Worthing and Folkestone. £4.95.

Leader Stirling’s story spans a period from his pre-first-world war childhood until 25 years after Tanzanian independence. His autobiography makes compulsive reading.

After sewing up the burst abdomen of his teddy bear while still in the nursery, we proceed through student days to his qualification as a doctor in 1929. The rigours of giving birth ‘on the district’ i.e. in the homes of the East End of London, are graphically described. The early chapters are slightly tedious, but once Dr Stirling reaches his training in clinical work and qualification the narrative has the quality of a novel by A.J. Cronin, both in content and writing. The reader is not spared clinical detail. Technical terms are used freely – eg .. the child “who developed sceptic thrombosis of his lateral sinus, and so pyaemia … ” This may prepare us for the more gory details of the animal injuries he later encountered in Tanzanian rural hospitals.

Descriptions of his early days in Africa in the Southern Province of Tanganyika are hair-raising. The operating theatre “was an open-work bamboo building with a grass roof and every gust of wind filled it with dust and dead leaves. A hen had also found its way in between the bamboos and was nesting quietly in the corner. There was no running water and no lighting except for oil lamps”. Many of the conditions he had to treat were horrific due to the distances patients had to travel to get medical help. The accounts of his journeys on foot or bicycle; sometimes at night, in response to emergency calls bear witness to his incredible stamina.

“The Dirty Game” heads the first chapter about Dr. Stirling’s entry into politics and here I have to part with him. Whatever one thinks about colonialism, in fact, most Africans accepted it without rancour at least until the middle fifties. It is true that it was due to the “…political dedication and consummate skill of our leader Julius Nyerere … that independence was secured peacefully” but an important part was played by the last Governor Sir Richard Turnbull, who is not mentioned, but who was chosen by the British Government with the purpose of working with Julius Nyerere to being about independence.

Two matters regarding registration of nurses and doctors require comment. On page 37 we read of Indians with “unregistrable qualifications”. These were, in fact, Asian doctors, of whom there were many in Tanganyika, qualified in India but whose degrees were not recognised in Britain or her colonies. Soon after Tanzania became independent they were fully registered as doctors. They were experienced men from whom more than one green young fully registered English doctor learnt much.

The Grade B nurses are described on page 153 as “..second class nurses simply because they were trained in their own country …” Any difference in the syllabus apart, no mention is made of the fact that their basic education was to middle school level only whereas the English nurses had GCE or its equivalent. Maybe it is not important but lack of basic education applies, of course, also to the “upgrading scheme” described on pages 130-131.

The later chapters are perhaps the most important in the book. Dr. Stirling presses for proper care for some of the cinderellas of the African medical services; patients with mental illnesses, leprosy etc. Then there is a chapter on primary health care, the “in thing” for the past 15 or 20 years, which Dr. Stirling rightly points out “we had been giving in Tanzania for the last 50 years or more”.

Altogether this is an excellent book. If parts read to those of us who were in Tanzania at the time like the writings of a politician, well, that is what the author acknowledges them to be.
Ursula Hay

TREVOR HUDDLESTDN. Essays on His Life and work. Edited by Deborah Duncan Honore. Oxford University Press. £14.95.

The Oxford University Press have produced this book of personal reminiscences and essays covering the main spheres of Trevor Huddleston’s life and work on the occasion of his 75th birthday in June 1938. Of course it cannot be a full biography of his life, for he is as strenuously active as ever in the leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Defence and Aid Fund, not to speak of his active chairmanship of the Britain-Tanzania Society and much more. But the man shines through these essays encompassing the areas and materials of his major concerns – in South Africa as priest in Sophiatown, so movingly pictured by Desmond Tutu, in Tanzania as Bishop of Masasi, in Stepney, in Mauritius, and now in the continuing struggle for justice in South Africa.

Those in the Britain-Tanzania Society will of course be drawn by the chapters on Tanzania by Julius Nyerere, Roger Carter (on Anglo: Tanzanian Relations Since Independence) and Terence Ranger (on Trevor Huddleston in Masasi). But the book should draw us as a whole if we are to grasp his courage and his integrity and his power to discern the heart of the matter in each of these situations and understand their background so vividly described and the problems so well discussed in these essays.

Here is Trevor carrying his Christian faith into the thick of the struggle for human dignity and respect against the powers of racialism, poverty, class, even of competing churches and faiths which so disastrously divide and may lead to violence. And unlike many prophets and campaigners he carries a power of friendship for us all, of every race, creed and age, and the abounding sense of fun (most of it at his own expense), which we have all joyfully experienced at our meetings and beyond.

At the centre is Trevor’s urge to break through the barriers that divide (see the delightful pictures of him enjoying the company of children in Masasi and Stepney). And if we need a bit of stretching of our horizons try the chapter by Pauline Webb on ‘The New Ecumenism’ in which through experience beginning with tribal beliefs in Tanzania and coming to flower in Mauritius he turns from the traditional exclusiveness of the Church to find in other faiths, tribal, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist not only a respect but a bond in the search for spiritual and human values and a new light on his own Christian belief. Bernard de Bunsen

SOLOMAN AND THE BIG CAT. A play presented at the Young Vic. June 8-25,1988.

Soloman and the Big Cat is about a schoolboy called Soloman in Tanzania. People thought that there were no leopards there but Soloman found two leopards, a mother and a baby while he was running his usual five miles to school. The rest of the story tells how Soloman and the Game Ranger try to protect the African poachers.

I thought the acting was very good especially as there were only six actors to take the parts of the many animals and characters that were in it. The costumes were also very good and the masks for the leopards were brilliant.

I thought the play was very exciting and worth watching. Harriet Benton (aged 9)

This play was given such an outstanding review in the Independent (“It is, quite simply, the best children’s play I have seen” – Alex Renton) that we asked Christine Lawrence, who also saw it, to give us a second opinion. Here are her comments – Editor.

It was exciting to find this very Tanzanian children’s play in the middle of London. Before the performance the cast were able to sit on the edge of the stage and chat informally with the children so that a link between performer and audience was established from the start.
There was practicaly no scenery but clever use was made of lighting and a large screen at the back of the stage. At one point the Serengeti migration of thousands of animals moved across the scene and while Soloman had a nightmare about poachers a kaleidoscope of coloured patterns swirled dizzily around.

The play was made topical and true to Tanzanian tradition by the inclusion of a refugee schoolgirl from Mozambique and by giving Soloman a ‘big brother’ who is an Olympic marathon runner. (Two Tanzanian marathon runners, Juma Ikangaa and John Bura have recently qualified for the Olympic Games in Seoul). Big brother does not actually take part in the play but is a constant inspiration to Soloman as he runs to school and elsewhere.

The simplicity of the production, something like a superior game of charades, made it easy for children to follow but in no way did it detract from the creation of atmosphere. Our emotions were constantly stirred. We worried about the two leopards, (first caught in snares and later pursued by poachers); we loved Soloman and agonised or rejoiced with him and prayed that he would resist the bribery and threats of the poacher’s boss, a slick, sun bespectacled city-type. At various points we laughed, especially during the first school scene with Soloman repeatedly trying to tell about the leopards and being repeatedly ‘squashed’ by the school mistress; when various animals appeared (played by people); and, at the sight of a remote-controlled toy Landrover journeying across the stage (recalling to my mind those home made toys made by African children).

The climax was superb. Soloman discovers that the poachers know the whereabouts of ‘little Africa’ (the smaller leopard) who has become pregnant. He does a marathon run to fetch Ranger Filbert from the Serengeti but they arrive back too late to save both leopards from being shot dead. There is a terrible moment of despair but this is turned to joy when two tiny living cubs are taken from little Africa’s dead body, The poachers, of course, are caught. Soloman is a hero.