In May, 1979, the foreign ministers of the five Front Line States meeting in Gaborone decided to call a larger meeting in Arusha (SADCC 1) in July of that year to try to evolve a strategy for broadly-based cooperation in southern Africa. At the Arusha conference in addition to the Front Line States nine bilateral and a number of multilateral aid organisations (World Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat, European Community, African Development Bank and a number of UN organisations) took part as observers. The conference was united in forming the SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COORDINATION CONFERENCE (SADCC). The transport and communications sector in the region was considered to be particularly crucial and demanded immediate attention. Consequently, the decision was taken to establish the SOUTHERN AFRICAN TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (SATCC) with headquarters in Maputo. Other important questions discussed at the conference dealt with energy, soil and water conservation, training and food production, with the special purpose of reducing dependence on imports from South Africa. As a contribution to the section on agriculture the INTERNATIONAL CROP RESEARCH INSTITUTE FDR SEMI-ARID TROPICS (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, offered to start a branch in the region, or, to be more exact, in Botswana. In its research and development projects, the Institute is to investigate the special agricultural problems faced in the extensive dry areas of the region.

The discussions in Arusha were concluded with the endorsement of a proposed declaration containing four principal goals for cooperation within SADCC:

(1) to reduce economic dependence on South Africa in particular, but also on other countries;

(2) to institute a true and just integration of the states in the region;

(3) to mobilise resources for national, international and regional projects; and

(4) to act together towards securing financial and technical assistance within the framework of a strategy for economic liberation.

Action Programme and Financial Provision
The Arusha conference was followed in April by a summit meeting in Lusaka, the first meeting at which all nine member states took part, including Zimbabwe, which had just become independent. The summit endorsed unanimously the Lusaka Declaration, a formal presentation of the proposed main objectives of SADCC, which in turn emphasised the following spheres of activity :
(1) transport and communications;
(2) agriculture;
(3) training, especially within the transport and agriculture sectors;
(4) industrial development; and
(5) energy.

Within the framework of the action programme it was calculated that 1.5 milliard dollars would be needed during the eighties for the regional projects. It would be impossible to generate so much money within SADCC. Tb maintain the momentum of the development programme it would be necessary to be assured of considerable external financial support. Consequently, it was decided that at the next plenary meeting, which was to be held in Maputo in November, 1980 (SADCC 2), the problem of funding should be the main subject. Thirty governments and bilateral aid organisations together with twenty multi-lateral and international bodies were represented at Maputo. The result was that the donor organisations undertook to support the regional projects within SADCC to the extent of 650 million dollars spread over a five year period from 1980 to 1985.

The SADCC projects were set in motion and at the Blantyre conference in November, 1981, the time had come for the first evaluation. It transpired that the greatest progress had been made in the transport and communications sector and that many projects were in full swing. Even within the agriculture and food sectors as well as within the industry sector progress had been made. Less satisfactory was the position with energy and land conservation. The main question before the conference was finance. One year after the Maputo conference only 273 million dollars out of the promised 650 million had actually been committed in legally binding agreements. This factor had obviously reduced somewhat the tempo of development. Delays in obtaining the release of funds can in part be attributed to bureaucratic sluggishness, but it is unfortunately true that in some cases political problems were associated with the delays. In January, 1983, a new meeting with various donors was held in Maseru, where about 200 million dollars were promised.

Unanimous decisions at all levels
Sir Seretse Khama, at that time chairman of SADCC, stated in his opening address to the summit meeting in Lusaka in 1980 that cooperation within SADCC should be built on ‘concrete projects and specific programmes rather than on grandiose schemes and massive bureaucratic institutions’. This motto has since then characterised the manner in which SADCC has attacked regional cooperation. A decentralised model and a decision-making process requiring unanimity at all levels was decided upon. A limited number of institutions have in the meantime been developed and formalised in a Memorandum of Understanding of the SADCC, which was adopted at a summit meeting in Harare in July, 1981.

The Summit is the highest authority in SADCC with responsibility for general policy and for the control of activities. The summit consists of the chiefs of the member states and it meets at least once a year. All decisions must be unanimous.

The Council, which consists of one minister from each member state, is responsible for overall planning, general coordination, control of the organisation’s various institutions and supervising the implementation of programmes. The Council approves the work programme of SADCC and appoints the member state charged with the coordination of activities within a particular area of work. The Council meets at least once a year and all decisions must be unanimous.

Sectoral Commissions can be set up for programmes within particular areas of activity. The Southern African Transport and Communications Commission (SATCC) is such a commission. It is possible that similar commissions will be set up within the energy, agriculture and industry sectors. The Commissions report to the Council.

A Standing Committee of Officials responsible to the Council has been established. It also must meet at least once yearly and its decisions must be unanimous. Finally, a small Secretariat has been established in Gaborone, which is responsible for serving the various SADCC institutions. The Director of the secretariat is responsible for and rapporteur to the Council. The Council also occupies a key position in respect of planning within SADCC with sectoral commissions, a permanent committee of officials and a secretariat as executive organ. Outside this structure are the annual conferences (SADCC 1, SADCC 2, etc.) to which the various aid organisations are invited.

Distribution of responsibility
The ongoing work is in large measure decentralised. Each member state has been allocated its special sphere of responsibility. Angola is responsible for coordination in the energy sector. Botswana has been given development research and activities connected with cattle diseases. Lesotho shares with Zimbabwe responsibility for land conservation and land use. Malawi coordinates the conservation of fish and wild animals. Mozambique, on account of its central situation in the region, has been allocated the coordination of the important transport and communications sector. Swaziland is responsible for the coordination of manpower development and training. For the time being it is also responsible for the health sector. Tanzania has special responsibility for industrial development. Zambia is responsible for the Southern African Development Fund and for the mining sector. Zimbabwe, finally, has been given the foodstuffs sector, land conservation and development (jointly with Lesotho) and the printing of securities (currency, cheques, state bonds, etc.).

SADCC can be characterised by concepts such as pragmatism, decentralisation and unanimity in decision-making. It deals with limited, concrete projects within the region and works towards increased cooperation in line with its principal common goals. The decentralised mode of operation has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that bureaucratisation is avoided and money is saved. The main drawback may be deficient coordination between sectors. A system requiring unanimity in decision-making at all levels (in contrast to majority decisions) assumes as a prerequisite that unanimity between such different states will generally speaking be attainable. The member countries are of course most dissimilar in respect of size, resources, stage of development and political aims. The disadvantage of this model may well be that progress is slower when all the time it is necessary to aim at the lowest common denominator. But with a ‘speedier’ model based on majority decisions and a supranational organisational structure, the organisation might all the time be threatened with collapse.

During the short time that the organisation has existed, it seems that SADCC has made relatively good progress. Development has got furthest in the transport sector. The South African regime clearly sees SADCC as a threat and conducts an aggressive destabilisation policy against its neighbours – a policy, however, which rebounds upon it and threatens its own commercial interests in the region.

Maria Jerkland Aberg

Note: The above article is translated from the Swedish and omits the first part, which describes the present economic geography of southern Africa. The article, in turn, constitutes a summary of ‘Dependence and collective self-reliance in southern Africa: the case of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC)’, by Arne Tostensen (Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1982).

As indicated on page 11, President Nyerere gave a press conference to the Tanzanian newspapers and Radio Tanzania in the Diamond Jubilee Hall, Dar es Salaam, on 28th. July, 1983, before an assembly of leaders. The proceedings were relayed over the Kiswahili service of Radio Tanzania. The following summary is based on a monitoring record of the broadcast.

Although this event appears to have been an innovation, it has been the President’s practice in recent years to visit the University of Dar es Salaam and to reply to questions put to him by the students. But these were essentially private occasions. On this occasion, the questions put to him by representatives of the media were based on letters that they had been receiving and therefore reflected the misgivings and uncertainties of the literate and largely urban minority; the views and feelings of the rural majority were inevitably largely unrepresented and are very much more difficult to ascertain.

The questions were put by the Daily News, Radio Tanzania, SHIHATA (the Tanzanian News Agency), Uhuru and Mzalendo. The large majority of questions were concerned with the working of the law against economic sabotage (see Bulletin No.17, pp.14, 15), at that time only a few weeks old. The action had started on 24th. March and the first legislation was signed by the President on 4th. May. The misgivings expressed were that the most powerful economic saboteurs were escaping the penalties of the Act, or were not being caught, and that the Government’s commitment was declining. Questions were asked about the basis on which clemency was granted, or suspects released by the special tribunal, and about the separate committees which, it was alleged, were dealing with the cases of Party and Government leaders and the heads of parastatals. On the other hand, one questioner asked whether there was a danger of hard work and its rewards being misconstrued as economic sabotage and whether it was right to hold suspects in detention awaiting an appearance before the tribunal after the expiry of the 60 days prescribed by law.

Questions were also raised about the alleged ownership of certain trading corporations by Government and Party leaders, the factors hindering the reopening of the border with Kenya (it has since been reopened), the danger that the removal to their homes of unemployed persons under the Human Resources Deployment Act, 1983, might lead to an increase of tribalism, the proliferation of special committees in Government and Party, the failure of enquiries into the expenditure of Government and public corporations to report within the allotted time of nine months and the apparent re-employment in top jobs of Government leaders who had been retired or dismissed after making gross mistakes.

Many of these questions remained unanswered in the President’s replies. He began by referring to two matters brought to his attention by Uhuru. First, if Lonrho had indeed been guilty of collaboration with South Africa and if its operations in Tanzania had been harmful to trade, why had it been decided to compensate Lonrho for the confiscated assets of this company and even to consider allowing it to resume operations? Secondly, why following the earlier opposition of the Government to the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for currency devaluation has the currency nevertheless been devalued? The transcript is incomplete and contains no indication of the President’s views on the first of these questions, but on the matter of devaluation he seems to have suggested that the change in policy had come about because of a new understanding of ‘how things work’. The H1F had recommended an increase in exports and a reduction of imports and this was being done. As regards devaluation, the Government’s objection was not against devaluation per se, whether to 15, 20, or 30 shillings per dollar, but against the manner and timing of the devaluation proposed. The IMF sought immediate devaluation from shs.12 to shs.30 per dollar. The Government were not objecting to the devaluation itself, but to the speed of implementation as requested by the IMF. There was a speed of devaluation that would cause very great problems.

Turning to the questions on economic sabotage, the President first addressed himself to the charge of a loss of momentum. This charge he rebutted and said that it had never been promised that there would be no releases. Some people had been wrongly arrested and it was right that they should be released. He hoped that they would forgive. He was unable to give numbers, but said that when people were released the fact was given publicity in the papers and on the radio. Many people had been released on bail pending a hearing of their cases, but all had been taken back into custody by the police, or on presidential orders. There were, however, others against whom the charges had been withdrawn.

People arrested under the special legislation fell into four groups. First, there were those against whom the police held sufficient evidence to bring them to trial. Secondly, there were those who had committed crimes that were then found to lie outside the scope of the new law. They would be brought before the ordinary courts. Thirdly, there were those against whom the evidence was not very good, but whose known character and records showed them to be ‘big economic saboteurs’. If on the day of the clampdown no evidence could be found, they would have been released by the tribunal. In such cases of known saboteurs the police would ask the President to detain them- presumably under the presidential powers in the Preventive Detention Act. The fourth group consisted of party workers, members of the public service and the staff of parastatals, where the evidence was not weighty enough to secure a conviction before a tribunal. In such cases, their names were referred back for consideration under the disciplinary provisions of their employment.

The President said that all those against whom the evidence was clear would go before a tribunal, be they Party leader, Government leader, or ordinary businessman. But in the case of leaders, whether or not the evidence was sufficient for charges before a tribunal, they would also be considered by the disciplinary organs of Party or Government.

366 people had been arrested and released because there was no evidence to justify keeping them in custody. He himself had released two people, one of them being Edward Barongo, the former Regional Commissioner of Kilimanjaro Region.

On 22nd. August, it was announced that Barongo had been rearrested after the discovery of a large amount of money and goods imported from abroad at his house in Bukoba. Other sums of money were discovered at his house in Moshi. The President explained that his previous decision to release Barongo had been based on the minor character of his infringements known at that time. He had not then been aware of the major new evidence against Barongo.