TA ISSUE 19

Issue 19 cover

Bulletin of Tanzanian Affairs
No. 19 JULY 1984

CONTENTS
Farewell to the East African Community – Julius K. Nyerere
The state of the Tanzanian economy – A budget summary
The effects of devaluation – J. Roger Carter
Coffee cultivation in Tanzania – Philip Raikes
The judiciary – Julius K. Nyerere
Refugees in Tanzania
Review: Technological choice, industrialisation and development experience in Tanzania: F.C. Perkins – John Arnold
Some items of news

EDITOR’S NOTE
His many friends and admirers will have been shocked to learn of the untimely death in a road accident of Tanzania’s Prime Minister, Ndugu Edward Sokoine, widely described as heir apparent to President Nyerere. Ndugu Sokoine was known as a man of integrity and great ability. His death is a sore loss to Tanzania at a time of great national difficulty.

In the last issue, Dr. Lamwai described the Tanzanian legal profession. In this issue we summarise an address recently given by President Nyerere at a meeting of judges and resident magistrates, in which he referred to the ‘sickness of bribery and corruption’ that had entered society. The Economic Sabotage Act (Bulletin No.17 pp.14 and 15), which had been due to expire, has been extended for a further six months. It is understood that there are some 700 cases still pending. The sickness is that of a society under tremendous strain and will only be finally remedied and previous high standards restored when normal economic progress has been resumed.

Dr. Philip Raikes has sent us a stimulating contribution on the coffee industry. Some of the statements in the article may prove controversial and we hope to hear from readers. The reference to the partial cause and effect relationship of ‘pure stand’ Arabica coffee in Ngara and the stagnation in production recalls to my mind a visit I paid many years ago to Ruanda, where pure stand Arabica coffee seemed to be doing very well. I wonder if any of our readers have recent experience of the coffee industries in countries adjacent to Ngara.

David Brewin
Editor
Flat 22, Corringham, 13/16 Craven Hill Gardens, London W2 3EH.

FAREWELL TO THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

(From a speech delivered by President Julius Nyerere on the occasion of the formal dissolution of the East African Community in Arusha on 14th. May, 1984)

Nearly seventeen years ago we met in Kampala and signed the Treaty establishing the East African Community. Today we are meeting to sign an Agreement, which formally brings that Community to an end. Therefore I cannot pretend that this is a very proud day for East Africa! But the past has passed. We have to learn from its mistakes and move forward again.

The existence of the Community was not itself a mistake. On the contrary, in the East African Community our three countries possessed something which was good, which was useful to all our peoples and each of our nations. As a result of it we had a coherent East African infrastructure, which could support a common market and which was an essential prerequisite to the development of large-scale industrial units. None of our East African corporations or institutions worked perfectly. I do not know of any national ones that do either. And just as faults within our domestic economies are dealt with and overcome, to be replaced by new problems, so the inevitable problems in international cooperation structures can be tackled. It was not organisational faults which led to the break-up of the Community.

Nor did the different ideologies adopted in our three countries make cooperation impossible. All of us in practice operate mixed economies; it is only the proportions of public and private enterprise and that underlying philosophies which differ. And all of us cooperate with both capitalist and publicly owned enterprises and institutions outside East Africa. The only reason why the Community broke up was a lack of political will to deal with it in a spirit of unity and in the awareness of our interdependence, with the inevitable difficulties of international cooperation between poor countries.

I think we have now learned this basic lesson. For the break-up of the Community was very expensive for each of our countries as well as for East Africa as a whole. It led to some essential infrastructural facilities being unnecessarily duplicated. Trade patterns were disrupted. We Buffered from trying to provide in isolation those public utilities which require regional action. And we found that in our separate economic discussions with other countries of the world the interests of East Africa could be even more easily disregarded.

Thus, we now know from bitter experience that our countries need each other. Isolation follows from separation and in its turn increases that separation as each country tries in vain to find alternative sources of strength. The result is greater weakness, or at least a failure to grow in strength.

Some of the problems arising from the break-up of the Community were recognised very quickly. A Mediator was appointed early in 1978 and charged with the function of distributing the assets and liabilities of the East African Community. The Agreement we are Signing today is his achievement and our achievement. It is a very real one. There has been an amicable settlement of very difficult and contentious issues and during the negotiations our awareness of being basically East African has been reinforced.

Today’s Agreement puts into legal form the decision of our three Governments about the proportion of the Community assets and liabilities which will be taken over by our respective countries. It marks the acceptance by all our creditors of this arrangement. Bilateral agreements have been made between each of our three East African countries and the creditors concerned. In addition, Kenya and Tanzania have agreed with Uganda on the compensation payments to be made for Uganda’s shortfall in assets. And last but not least, all East African Community pensioners and stockholders have been assured of their due money. Today we are transferring the East African Community to the history books.

As we do so, however, I want to record my sincere thanks to all those who have made our fresh start possible. I cannot mention everyone who contributed. ~t I must repeat my thanks to Dr. Victor Umbricht for his patient perseverance and the way he put his great intellectual and diplomatic abilities to our service. The World Bank and the UNDP financed the work done under his leadership and the British Government provided invaluable technical assistance to hill and therefore to us. The Ministers and Officials of our three Governments have also done an incredible amount of detailed work as well as giving the necessary advice to their respective Presidents. To all these people and institutions I offer my thanks. At the same time I would like to thank our creditors for their cooperation. Some of them have taken that even further by deciding to cancel East African Community debts so as to facilitate the renewal of cooperation in this region. We greatly appreciate this action.

So we in East Africa can now plan our future together. As we do so, we have to recognise the changes which have taken place since 1977 and which prevent the revival of the East African Community in its old form. Some of these changes have taken place within our separate countries, some relate to the different world environment in which we now have to operate. But while none preclude new forms of cooperation, some make it even more imperative than it was in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

In particular, the states of East Africa are now being forced to recognise and revalue their common interests in relation to the industrial world. All of us have been hit by deteriorating terms of trade, by the international economic recession and the monetarist policies which have been adopted to deal with it and by the resurgence in powerful countries of the doctrine that might is right. We have all experienced our individual weakness in negotiation, with its danger of giving away more than we need to do- or should do- because of the desperation of our need. We have therefore come to realise that while standing together will not, for the present, make us strong, it can make us stronger. And in our present weakness every accession of economic or political strength is important.

Trilateral and bilateral discussions about the form of new East African cooperation are getting under way; it is not for me to prophesy their results. There are a few institutions, most notably the East African Development Bank, which we have already decided to carry over from the Community. Some essential tasks so clearly need to be operated on a regional basis that the technical problems of organising cooperation are not likely to create political controversy; the meteorological services and most if not all kinds of research are obviously in this category. But apart from this I can only throw my own ideas into the common pool.

The advantages of East African cooperation, coordination, or joint ownership, in respect of really large scale economic enterprises or public utilities does not need any elaboration. Some energy projects, for example, have technically to be created on a large scale, or not at all, yet our domestic economies, while needing to be supplied, may not be sufficient to justify their size. International transportation enterprises, whether by air or sea, are ruinously expensive for small nations like ours however advantageous it may be to have such a thing under your own control. In the new climate of deliberate and conscious East African cooperation the complex problems of creating these things for our common benefit can be looked at anew.

But why should we stop there? Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have all supported resolutions at the OAU and the Non-Aligned Conference calling for greater South-South economic cooperation. And we are all poor countries. Our national income is low because our output per head of our population is very low. What all of us need is, first, increased production of the goods which can be traded and, secondly, arrangements encouraging regional trade. Is there no way in which through East African cooperation we can improve our level of production?

For example, all three countries have acknowledged that agriculture is the basis of its economy and the starting point for any self-reliant development. And agricultural output in our peasant societies as much as in other forms of agricultural organisation depends on better seeds, on the availability of fertiliser, insecticides and pesticides and on the provision of agricultural implements and machinery. Surely we should investigate the potential benefits to our nations and to East Africa of cooperation in such areas.

Or again, some consumer goods and services can with advantage be produced on a small scale, even at village or district level. The economic viability of other manufacturing processes demands what is for each of us at present a national market. However, some essential manufactured goods can only be produced economically on a scale which none of our economies can at present support. Why cannot we designate, or establish, ‘East African Industries’ for this purpose? These would have to be organised in such a way that we all have a genuine and continuing interest in them and their efficiency and, politics being what they are, their geographic distribution will have to be in rough balance. They could be, but do not have to be, joint enterprises; shares in them could be publicly or privately owned according to the preferences of the host or participating country. Certainly I am convinced that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania could all gain from such cooperation in large scale production and that we have among our citizens the ability to work out modes of operation and ownership appropriate to our common needs and differing economic structures and organisations.

Colleagues and friends, our purpose here is formally to wind up the East African Community so that we can move to the new task of organising and implementing East African cooperation for the 1980’s and beyond. Our Ministers have already been instructed to begin the new work. Now that they are relieved of the burden of the past I am confident that they will bring to their new duties the same commitment and energy which they have recently devoted to the Agreement we are signing today. I look forward to the summit meeting at which we shall approve the implementation of new cooperation arrangements. For decisions relating to our economies are being made every day. If we do not make them in the context of East African cooperation our countries will be constantly moving further and further away from each other and along different routes to the same destination of economic stagnation.

Julius K. Nyerere

A BUDGET SUMMARY

(The budget speech was delivered to the National Assembly on 8th. June, 1984, by the Minister for Finance, Ndugu Cleopa Msuya)

The news from Tanzania continues to give cause for considerable concern and anxiety. The last year has seen a further decline in the standard of living. Income per head at 1966 prices fell from shs.665 in 1980 to an estimated shs.589 in 1983. The gross domestic product at constant 1966 prices likewise fell from shs.12,035 in 1980 to shs.11,671 in 1983. Tb balance the recurrent budget it was necessary in 1983-84 to borrow from the bank a record sum of shs.3,120 million, with all its inflationary implications, an amount equal to about 7% of GDP at current prices. The production of export crops has continued to be sluggish and to remain well below the levels of the last decade. By April, 1984, the crop authorities had accumulated debts to the National Bank of Commerce of shs.5,OOO million. Adverse weather conditions and a rapidly growing population have imposed on Tanzania the need to import food in the last three years and the prospects for the 1984 crop remain serious. An acute shortage of food is reported in Shinyanga and Mwanza Regions, while in Tanga, Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Mara Regions the long rains were four weeks late following the failure of the previous short rains. There is thus a danger that Regions which normally have a food surplus will become net importers of food.

In the face of this very grave situation the Government has adopted further drastic measures in an attempt to arrest the decline. First, the currency has been devalued by 26% in an attempt to bring it more into line with market realities. The dollar is now equivalent to shs.11 in place of the previous rate of shs.12.6 and the pound sterling exchanged at the end of June for about shs.22.5. Tb mitigate the effect on urban wage earners the minimum wage has been increased by 35% to shs.810 and the tax threshold has been raised accordingly. There have been corresponding increases on a diminishing scale in Government salaries falling to 15% for those receiving more than shs.4,OOO per month. Parastatal salaries are to be adjusted accordingly.

Secondly, various steps have been taken in an attempt to increase the output both of food and of export crops and also to expand certain industries, tourism and the exploitation of natural resources. Producer prices for farmers are to be increased by 46-55% according to crop. This will serve both to offset increased costs of production, including the effects of devaluation, and also to increase incentives. The accumulated debts of the crop authorities will be taken over and funded by the Government over a period of 6-8 years, leaving the new Cooperative Unions to take over crop marketing and movement on a fully commercial basis without the constraint of inherited debts. New facilities are being developed by the National Bank of Commerce, the Tanzania Investment Bank and the Tanzania Rural Development Bank in support of small scale projects in agriculture and industry, the development of local raw material supplies and the promotion of projects in the agricultural and irrigation sectors respectively.

Thirdly, a concerted attack is being made on cost reduction and inefficiency both in Government and in the parastatals, following the reports of two special enquiries, to be supervised by Ndugu Amir H. Jamal, Minister in the Office of the President. A streamlining of Government, involving the reduction of 22 Ministries to 15, is expected to yield savings of shs.40 million. A resolute attack on transport costs will be accompanied by measures to reduce the misuse of official transport facilities for private purposes. New procedures will be introduced to ensure that payment vouchers and local purchase orders are only effective with the approval of vote holders and when funds are available.

Except in key categories – teachers, medical personnel and agricultural Experts – new Government recruitment will be restricted or arrested, as in the previous year.

Fourthly, various steps are being taken to increase revenues. Notable among them is the imposition of a boarding charge in secondary schools of shs. 1,500 per pupil and a charge for lunches in secondary day schools of shs.350 per pupil. The trend in secondary education is towards the expansion of day schools. In addition, the abolition of the sembe subsidy and the subsidies on fertilisers and insecticides will yield substantial economies. The airport service charge is to be increased from shs.40 to shs.125 and foreigners will be expected to pay the equivalent of 10 dollars in foreign currency for trips abroad. Sales taxes on a number of items, including petrol, will be increased.

The measures now taken seem to provide somewhat greater freedom for market influences and a recognition of the contribution of local initiative and of the private sector. At the same time, in line with basic Government policy, the burdens imposed are widely distributed and care is taken to safeguard the poorest sections of the community. A central theme is the reduction of wasteful and unproductive expenditure. Nevertheless, some further fall in the general standard of living seems inescapable.

The Government has not given up hope of reaching an accord with the IMF. It is, however, good to learn that Denmark has decided to maintain its support in 1984 to the tune of £15.2 million, though with a shift of emphasis towards productive activities at the expense of infrastructure; and that Sweden has approved a programme for 1983-84 and 1984-85 totalling £64.4 million for the two years, including a valuable allocation of £11.9 million for import support in 1984-85.

Inevitably there is grumbling and the alternative market remains unquenchably active. But the general state of morale appears to remain remarkably buoyant. There is an assumption in this country- even in high quarters- that the Tanzanians have brought their troubles upon themselves. Such an unqualified judgment would be grossly unfair. Certainly there have been serious mistakes- the manner of implementation of the villagisation programme is an example- and certainly the remarkable speed of progress in the social sector has outdistanced the diminished resources required to sustain it. But by far the most important cause of the nation’s difficulties is the hostile world economic climate. Tanzania alone cannot change these external influences and is compelled to adjust to them. In the middle seventies it successfully came to terms with the first oil price rise. But the second round of increased oil prices combined with high world interest rates and the effects of the recession have created conditions too adverse for an easy escape for Tanzania’s frail and diminutive economy. The Government is making strenuous efforts, but there has never been a time when external help of the right kind was more needed.

THE EFFECTS OF DEVALUATION

In 1983 the IMF were understood to be pressing the Tanzanian Government to devalue the shilling from Shs. 12.6 to the American dollar to between shs. 25 and shs.35. In free market conditions, where the money earned by exports and services falls short of the money spent on imports and other external obligations, the value of the local currency will tend to fall in relation to foreign currencies. The effect of such currency depreciation will be to make imports more expensive in local currency terms and exports cheaper in foreign currency. As a result, imports will fall and exports will be encouraged to expand until a new equilibrium is reached. That is the simple theory.

But this simple theory has little meaning in a very poor primary commodity exporting country already restricting imports to a few basic necessities. In such circumstances the consequences of devaluation are complex and are most unlikely to follow the predictions of the simple model. While serious disequilibrium is easily recognised, an ideal or equilibrium rate of exchange is hard to establish. This has been seen recently in the discussions surrounding the sterling rate of exchange, where the interests of exporters, of importers and of the government have seemed to conflict.

First, there may be no scope left for choking off demand for imports, so that the import bill is not reduced. Secondly, the external prices of export crops are determined in world markets and the effect of devaluation here is limited to the indirect one of yielding higher domestic currency returns for given world prices. Thirdly, the stimulus to exports is not an instant reaction to higher prices. While there is ample evidence in Tanzania that farmers respond sensitively to changes in profitability, any marked increase in output will require new planting which, in the case of most export crops, will come into production only after a gap of several years. Further, the government has to consider the impact of export stimulation on food crops. Devaluation does nothing to enhance the profitability of food crops and may even reduce it by increasing the cost of transport and of imported fertiliser and insecticides. Any increased return to food crop producers, therefore, has to come from the consumer, or from government subsidies, or from savings on the handling and marketing of crops. It would, however, make no sense if food crop production were to suffer from a transfer of attention to export crops, resulting in the need for higher food imports. On the contrary, greater food production is one important way of correcting the imbalance in the foreign exchanges.

It seems likely the IMF’s advocacy of drastic devaluation has rested in part on the assumption that a substantial proportion of export crop production is disposed of in the more lucrative black market and is therefore lost to the nation’s foreign exchange account. A rise in official producer prices would therefore, it is assumed, restore the black marketed output to official trading channels, where it would substantially add to official foreign exchange earnings. The IMF may well over-estimate black market losses, for which there seems to be little evidence in the figures for the amounts officially marketed. It is possible, therefore, that the IMF in their calculations have set the corrective action too high and it remains to be seen whether the devaluation recently announced will be sufficient to eliminate such black market wastage in the form of unofficial cross-border sales to neighbouring countries.

Devaluation has the advantage of increasing producer incomes at no expense to the government by increasing the local currency income from sales. Some of the increase will be absorbed by greater production costs, which rely heavily on imports, notably transport, but a margin for increased profits should remain. The IMF clearly places reliance on the profit motive to induce farmers to produce more for export, but the reaction of farmers to monetary incentives is likely to be coloured by the availability on the shops of desired items of common consumption. Since the shops are largely bare of such items, the impact of devaluation will depend in part on the rehabilitation of consumer goods industries. Unfortunately, devaluation increases industrial costs and does nothing to encourage industrial growth for the home market.

The rise in the cost of imports in local currency terms will inevitably raise the cost of living. The extent of the rise will depend both on the import content of common consumer goods and also on the increased production costs of local commodities, notably food. The higher cost of fuel, machinery and vehicles for cultivation and transport will be an element in higher food costs. There has been disagreement between the government and the IMF about the inflationary consequences of their proposals for devaluation, but that there will be a substantially increased burden on the consumer, particularly in the urban areas, there can be no doubt. In view of the already intense pressures on the urban poor, the government has to take this effect carefully into account in their calculations as to the extent of devaluation that can be accepted.

This summary of some of the effects of devaluation, though incomplete, is sufficient to show that the timing and extent of devaluation are not matters for nice monetary calculation, but involve political judgments and the offsetting of benefits against costs, which in the last resort only the government can do. Any devaluation policy entails real losses in consumption and investment. The problem for government is to minimise these losses and to distribute their impact in such a way as to safeguard the urban poor, while securing the maximum adjustment in the balance of payments. It is worth keeping in mind that for Tanzania export rehabilitation is the only permanent and sound means of restoring balance to the foreign exchanges. Consequently, the government has to keep an eye fixed on the impact that any package of measures may have on the exporters. This is not Simply a matter of producer incentives, but involves action on a wide front to produce and distribute the inputs necessary for export production to create, in effect, an environment conducive to export growth.

The recent package of measures described elsewhere in this issue involving a devaluation of 26% is the outcome of the government’s detailed scrutiny of the problem in all its aspects. It is to be hoped that it will be sufficient to attract the sympathetic cooperation of the IMF.

J. Roger Carter

COFFEE CULTIVATI0N IN TANZANIA

Coffee is currently Tanzania’s most important export crop and has been one of the three most important since the early colonial period. While sisal was grown entirely on plantations and cotton solely by smallholders, coffee has been produced by both, though there are very few large estates left. When one comes to look at the effect which coffee production has had on the areas in which it is grown, it becomes clear that this is rather different from the effects of other peasant-produced export crops, like cotton, or cashewnuts.

In part this is because the physical environment in which coffee can be grown is different from that for cotton or cashew, in part because of factors specific to the crop. One thing which tells one a lot about the difference between them is the use of compulsion in their introduction. During and since the colonial period the use of state coercion to introduce or expand the cultivation of required crops has been a recurrent phenomenon. Apart from a very short period the early 1920’s, compulsion has almost never been used to make peasants produce coffee. On that occasion it rapidly became clear to the peasants that the crop was profitable and voluntary planting went ahead so rapidly that, under pressure from the white settlers, the authorities turned around to trying to discourage production. Cotton, by contrast, has been the object of compulsory campaigns from the first years of the present century, when they were among the factors which led to the Maji Maji rebellion, to the present. Throughout the colonial period, whenever a particular group of people was felt to be ‘lazy’, or ‘backward’, compulsory production of cotton was among the favourite means to ‘teach them a lesson’- and one which almost invariably failed. Since the early 1970’s, with declining cotton production and export proceeds, ‘compulsory minimum acreages’ of cotton and many other crops have again been used- and with similar lack of success.

This, of course, is closely related to the fact that coffee was also grown on estates and plantations, while cotton generally was not. Coffee normally gives a good enough return on land, labour and capital to attract this sort of producer, whereas early attempts to produce cotton on large farms showed clearly that it did not. In particular, its low return on labour made it unprofitable to large farms and relatively unattractive to peasants, at least where there were alternative crops. B.Y contrast, coffee not only gives higher returns on labour, but being a perennial crop it can be kept going with a minimum of labour once it has been planted and nurtured to maturity.

Coffee is a tree crop which, once planted, can be maintained for decades, though periodic pruning is required if production is to be maintained. It requires rainfall of 40″ (1,OOOmm.) and upwards if irrigation is not to be used and a climate sufficiently cool such as is usually found in East Africa only above about 1,50Om .. In short, it is best suited to cool, well-watered areas, mostly mountainous. The main coffee growing areas in Tanzania are the northern Kilimanjaro/Meru area, Bukoba/Karagwe (where for Bukoba a situation west of Lake Victoria provides a cool, rainy climate without mountains) and Rungwe/Mbozi in the southern highlands. In addition, smaller amounts of coffee are grown in the Uluguru and Usambara mountains and the highlands of Ngara, Kigoma and Ruvuma.

Even prior to the introduction of coffee, these areas had agricultural systems considerably different from those of the lowlands and drier areas. Population density tended to be much higher, in some cases because population groups had been compressed into mountain areas because of military attack from larger, better organised and more warlike groups in the plains. This in turn generated a more stable and intensive pattern of agricultural practices than the shifting cultivation, which was suited to the low population densities in the plains. The Chagga of Kilimanjaro were using irrigation before the colonial period; the Iraqw of the Mbulu highlands had systems of erosion control and even possibly fodder conservation and there are similar examples from most of the other highland areas. Perhaps most importantly of all, in many if not most cases the standard staple grains of the plains (sorghum and millets) had been replaced by bananas and plantains, which give higher yields per hectare and which are permanent. This further stabilised the pattern of landholding into something much more like private ownership than was found anywhere else in the country.

Settlers and Missionaries
But it was not only to the local inhabitants that such areas were attractive. With the coming of colonialism, cool, well watered mountain areas were especially attractive to two different categories of foreigners- the settlers and the missionaries. For a number of reasons, missionaries had a relatively greater influence in Tanganyika during the colonial period than in neighbouring Kenya. In Kenya, where the settlers were overwhelmingly dominant, a large proportion of the best coffee land was alienated to become the ‘White Highlands’, while in order to ensure a supply of cheap labour and to block off alternatives to wage labour coffee growing by Africans was largely forbidden. The growth of African coffee production in Kenya thus dates from the 1950’s, when it was grown illegally in contravention of the rules and the 1960’s, when it was finally allowed.

In Tanganyika the Germans had been less successful than expected in growing coffee on estates up to 1914 and their estates were in any case taken from them during the war of 1914-1918. After the war, Kenya and other colonies were more attractive areas for British colonisation, while the League of Nations mandate and a Governor strongly influenced by indirect rule thinking placed further limits on the alienation of land. Settler production of coffee was encouraged, did grow and did lead to pressures to limit African production, but the interim had given a chance to local producers and the restrictions were less effective, only amounting to outright prohibition in one or two cases (Mbozi District in Mbeya for example).

While missionaries have often shown themselves willing to work with the colonial authorities, their interests differ from those of the settlers. The latter were interested in limiting the possibilities for African advancement in the interests of cheap labour, thus leading them to oppose both conversion to Christianity (‘Christian boys’ were ‘cheeky’ and ‘did not know their place’ a widely-voiced opinion when I lived in Tanganyika as a child in 1948-51) and education. The missionaries for their part were interested in converting as many as possible to Christianity and in the development of a sober, hard working peasant community with at least some educated members as a basis for its further spread. Moreover, whatever the personal inclinations of the missionaries, the institution of churches, schools, parish committees and other organised groups inevitably had some impact on the development of other organisations and institutions like cooperatives and tribal associations and exerted an enormous influence on formal education.

Clearly the development of peasant coffee production fitted well into this design, while the cool and pleasant climate of potential coffee areas together with the more settled pattern of cultivation and domicile made these areas particularly attractive to the missions.

Coffee and Education
If one compares the major coffee growing areas of Tanzania with areas in which other export or cash crops dominate, the impact of the missions becomes very clear. The three main coffee areas mentioned above contain no more than about ten per cent of the country’s population, but their peoples dominate the civil service, the professions, the churches and large-scale business (to the extent that this is controlled by Tanzanians at all). Moreover, they are particularly dominant at the higher levels. Levels of literacy and formal training are very considerably above those in the remainder of the country, in spite of an educational policy which, since 1969, has been specifically intended to reverse this bias.

Nor is it coincidental that most of the first marketing cooperatives in colonial Tanganyika were coffee cooperatives. Education is certainly not the only reason here. The crop lends itself to the development of cooperatives in some ways, notably that almost all is exported and that the price/weight ratio is high enough to allow good returns to both producer and cooperative.

It is also significant that the coffee-growing areas were much less affected by compulsory villagisation up to 1976 than others. In part, of course, this relates to settled cultivation and domicile, high population density and the unavailability of suitable sites for new settlement. But influence with and contacts in the higher levels of the bureaucracy have also been important. I worked in Bukoba in 1974/5 and during the planning of the villagisation drive there was a steady stream of senior civil servants and politicians from the area returning to visit their own villages and the administrative offices to check that no movement was intended and to show “their people” that they had solved the problem. Once again, the contrast with cotton areas where a very large proportion of the rural population was moved, in some cases more than once, is striking.

Coffee Improvement
The above should not lead one to believe that coffee-growers have been free from all of the irritating and normally ineffective interventions which the government has showered upon other rural producers from the beginning of the colonial period until the present, though compulsion has been less common and when used has been aimed at changing how coffee is produced. An early example is from Ngara District, where, in contrast to the rest of the west Lake area, peasants were forced to produce arabica coffee in “pure-stand”, rather than robusta coffee interplanted with bananas. One result of this has been that coffee production in that area has never grown to a level above that of the 1930’s, when compulsion was imposed with more than usual energy.

The inter-planting versus pure-stand controversy has a long and sad history. In all of the main coffee-growing areas, most peasants grow coffee inter-planted with bananas, which considerably reduces the yield of coffee. But the reason for this is that in most cases, and especially for small peasants, there is little room to grow coffee elsewhere. Bananas as the basic staple food are by far the most important crop and, even when translated into money terms, the value of bananas from a given interplanted area invariably exceeds that of coffee. For many peasants, the issue is not whether to grow coffee pure-stand or interplanted but whether to plant coffee among the bananas or not (most do).

But the extension service, noting the negative effect of interplanting on coffee yields, and being until quite recently largely unconcerned about food crops, has made pure-stand cultivation the basis of much of its advice, notably in Bukoba District. One side-effect of this has been that most of its other advice is thereby made irrelevant to the 85% or so of all coffee producers, who lack the land and/or labour to plant pure-stand coffee. Bananas are voracious users of water and soil nutrients, while their shade and evapo-transpiration produce a micro-climate different from that elsewhere. It does not require an advanced degree in agronomy to figure out that the fertilizer, spacing, pruning and insecticide requirements of coffee which is interplanted with bananas will be different from that of pure-stand coffee.

Another series of issues relate to the type of coffee produced and the way in which it is processed. In Kilimanjaro and most of the mountain producing areas of Tanzania, the type of coffee is arabica, a plant which produces high quality mild coffee. It is usually ‘wet-processed’, a fermentation process which requires running water and produces the best coffee, normally used for blending with others. In Kilimanjaro and most other mountain areas, water is no great problem as it is available from streams originating further up the mountain.

By contrast, the coffee of Bukoba, the second largest producing area, is, and has been since before the colonial period, mainly robusta, a plant which, as the name implies, requires rather less attention and which produces a more bitter coffee. It is, however, better suited to the production of powder coffee. Almost all the coffee of this area, including a small amount of arabica, is ‘hard-processed’, left in the sun to dry, after which the outer shell is removed by crushing and scraping.

Before the development of powder coffee, the price difference between the two types of coffee was considerable, while for arabica, there is a significant price-difference between ‘wet’ and ‘bard’ processing (roughly that between Colombian and Brazilian coffee). But the development of powder coffee has tended to reduce these differentials and it is thus surprising to find that for about fifteen years from 1950, the colonial and independent governments, or rather their extension services, spent considerable time, energy and money on trying to get the hard robusta producers of Bukoba to change to mild arabica.

Apart from the fact that robusta seems to do better on the rather poor soils of Bukoba, ‘wet-processing’ presents problems in that area. Surface water tends to be available only in valley-bottom swamps and ponds at some distance and downhill from where the coffee is grown. This entirely alters the labour implications of wet-processing. In spite of almost all coffee seedlings available from official sources being for arabica over a period of upwards of a decade and in spite of numerous other forms of pressure, the vast bulk of all coffee in Bukoba and Karagwe continues to be ‘hard-processed’ robusta.

In view of the above, it is not surprising that the extension service tends to consider the coffee producers of Bukoba District more ‘backward’ and ‘resistant to change’ than those of Kilimanjaro where, in addition, far more fertiliser and insecticide are used. In the past few years, however, some doubt has been thrown even on this. Largely because of the differences in input use, the import content of Kilimanjaro coffee exported is about 30% as opposed to only 10% for robusta. It is possible that if all of the indirect costs associated with input use in Kilimanjaro were added up, the disparity would be even greater. This is certainly not to propose that no fertiliser or insecticide should be used. But it may well be that heavy subsidies have led the producers of Kilimanjaro to use too much, while a better-oriented programme for Bukoba and the remainder of the Kagera Region could increase total coffee production at lower cost.

In the long run, one would expect landlessness to be a major problem in areas with high population densities even before the colonial period. But even here the disparity in educational levels has hitherto made it easier for people from these areas to find jobs than for most Tanzanians. It is true that for the past fifteen years political power has largely been directed away from the coffee areas, at least formally, through a series of revenue and price subsidies in different sectors. Even so, they have been shielded from the most serious effects of policies like villagisation and agricultural compulsion. Currently pressures from various sources for a more single-minded concern with economic as opposed to socio-economic development seem likely to favour the coffee producing areas.

Philip Raikes

THE JUDICIARY

(Extracts from a speech to Judges and Resident Magistrates given at Arusha on 15th. March, 1984, by President Julius Nyerere)

President Nyerere began by admitting that there was a wider gap between Tanzania’s principles and practices than there should be. He referred to the ‘sickness of bribery and corruption’ which had entered society and he explained that it could not yet be said that people were absolutely equal before the law. It was still an advantage to have friends or relations in high places. Some of the shortcomings were for the time being inevitable in the sense that they could not be remedied immediately. They reflected the poverty, technological and educational backwardness and the lack of administrative and managerial experience, complicated by the international economic situation.

He went on by saying that’ first class administration of the laws does not by itself create a just society, especially if the laws themselves are unjust. An obvious and clear case of this is South Africa. But how does this subject relate to Tanzania? Successive Governments in this country have sometimes felt forced to pass laws which in practice can be very dangerous for justice. Perhaps the clearest case is the Preventive Detention Act, which was first passed in 1962, but the Economic Sabotage Acts, together with the setting up of Tribunals, could also be cited. And there may be others.

The reason for these laws is known. People can differ about whether or not they are necessary, but it is obvious that those who proposed them, or agreed to them, thought that they were necessary- and I am among those who saw their importance. It is, however, true that in their implementation there can be dangers. I myself believed that the power to use preventive detention for the security of the country – which was the intention of the Preventive Detention Act – is necessary and that when used for this purpose it has on the whole been used well. But on too many occasions we have used this law to arrest criminals, or people believed to be criminals, whose acts do not relate to the security of the state. This is bad use of a necessary law and can introduce the practice of evading the use of normal legal procedures for ordinary crimes. It is essential that we should correct ourselves in this respect and I am sure that the first person who has to correct himself is the President.

I am not sure that in its present form the law on Economic Sabotage is essential. What we want is a law which will effectively protect our national economy. But it is not sufficient that there be strict or harsh laws on this. Those concerned, including the courts, must be willing actually to use them to protect our economy. It is the use of law to protect criminals which destroys respect for the instruments of law and incites Government to pass laws like the present one. This is why I say it is necessary for you to understand the problems with which Government has to contend and if possible to send recommendations to us about how to deal with the problems in a manner which does not bring danger to the rule of law and the principles of justice.

…. I am quite sure that Tanzanians do not want a Judiciary which has no principles and which carries out the wishes of the Government or Party leaders instead of respecting the law. Tanzanian people want a Party with principles, a Government with principles and a Judiciary with principles.

…. The truth is that the protection of the principle of the independence of the Judiciary is in your hands and especially in the hands of the senior judges such as those at this meeting. You must enforce discipline strictly throughout the judiciary and do so without being swayed by personal sympathy for the wrong doer, or fear of unpopularity should he be related to persons known to you. There are jobs in our society which can be done by undisciplined people and people whose personal integrity can be called into question. Being a Judge or Magistrate is not among them.’

Julius K. Nyerere

REFUGEES IN TANZANIA

Tanzania, like many other African countries, is a place of asylum for refugees of diverse Origin who have fled from their homes on account of war, persecution, or famine. At the present time more than 200,000 refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Malawi and South Africa are making their homes in Tanzania, some on a permanent basis, while others retain hopes of returning one day to their countries of origin. Unlike some countries of the Far East and elsewhere, it is not the policy of the Tanzanian Government to herd the refugees into camps ‘, where they are maintained in idleness, or indeed to enforce their separation from the local population. Fortunately, Tanzania has land to spare on which the refugees are enabled to settle and maintain themselves, developing their own institutions and receiving initial help from external agencies.

One substantial group consists of Hutus, victims of a cruel civil war in Burundi in 1972. There are about 37,000 Hutus now settled in the Mishamo settlements in Mpanda District in an area the size of Zanzibar. Each family on arrival is given about 12 acres of land and rations are provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) until the refugees are able to support themselves. The UNHCR and other international bodies have provided resources and expert help to enable the settlers to dig wells, to build schools and other communal facilities and to improve their agricultural programme.

The refugees at Mishamo are settled in 16 villages organised on self-help lines. Each village has a substantial communal farm from which the produce is sold to the Tanzanian crop authorities and the proceeds are devoted to village development. The settlements are served by some 250 Tanzanian agricultural and health workers and other specialists. In 1~80 some 36,000 refugees from Rwanda were granted Tanzanian citizenship.

This approach to the refugee problem based on 1ine creation of self-supporting communities and integration in the national community is almost unique. There are of course other parts of Africa where overpopulation, or unfavourable natural conditions would make a solution on these lines difficult. Nevertheless, Tanzania’s policy takes account of the enduring nature of much of Africa’s refugee problem and the need to provide refugees with the chance to form self-sustaining and self-respecting communities within the national family.

REVIEW

‘Technological Choice, Industrialisation and Development Experience in Tanzania.‘ by F.C. Perkins: Journal of Development Studies, Vol.19 No.2 January 1983

The Arusha Declaration identified the emphasis on industry inevitably dependent on foreign loans and expertise 2.S one of the mistakes of Tanzania’s early development plans. The new objectives of self-reliance and development based on agriculture were expected to be reinforced by a form of industrial development emphasising the use of labour rather than capital, providing a market for local raw materials and closely integrated with the rural economy. The Chinese-funded Friendship Textile Mill using technically outdated, but easily maintained, machinery and the establishment of SIDO (Small Industries Development Organisation) were regarded as demonstrations of the new strategy.

The place of industry in Tanzania’s development was set out in more detail in the 1977 Long-term Industrial Strategy, which defined prime objectives to be greater economic self-reliance and self-sustaining economic growth. This was to be achieved by creating links between sectors of the economy with a first priority for new public investment in basic consumer, intermediate and capita] goods industries and a stress on the importance of export-oriented industry and small-scale village enterprises.

Major investment decisions which did not conform with these policies, such as the Dar es Salaam Bakery and the Tanga Fertiliser Factory, both very expensive and embarrassing to the Government (see Coulson: ‘African Socialism in Practice’ and the Journal of Modern African Studies Vol.XX no.X 1977), were generally regarded as aberrations. This assumption is challenged by Perkins in his study of 300 industrial units in 10 industries, which suggests that Tanzania has had little success in maintaining its industrial investment policies against the pressures of foreign aid donors and international corporations.

Parkins compares the capital intensive techniques with the less technically advanced but more labour intensive methods (which he terms appropriate) actually in use in each of the ten industries. Using economists’ measures of efficiency, he calculates that appropriate techniques create more employment, produce more output for the capital invested, have either the same or higher labour productivity and use no more raw materials than the capital intensive methods. Yet despite firm political direction and economic justification, Tanzania’s industrial parastatals have avoided appropriate technology and shown a marked bias towards capital intensive and advanced methods. As a consequence, industry is still highly dependent on imported raw materials and there are few links within and between industries.

These characteristics are especially marked in the new parastatals, which choose to use more capital intensive methods than the organisations created by the nationalisation of existing private firms. Of all the parastatals studied, only 22% are calculated to be technically efficient; ‘all the rest used both more capital and more labour to produce a unit of output than did the other firms in their industries.’

Perkins concludes from the first part of his study that ‘…despite the rhetoric, Tanzania’s industrialisation programme has in general promoted the establishment of enterprises using large-scale, capital intensive, often technically and almost invariably economically inefficient techniques. Its technological choice policy in industry has in most instances failed to promote the achievement of major national development objectives …’.

Tanzania’s experience in this field is similar to that observed in other developing countries and Perkins examines the possible explanations. The orthodox economic criticism of developing countries is that their economies are distorted by regulations making labour artificially expensive and investment incentives making capital artificially cheap. These distortions exist in Tanzania, but this does not explain why high cost methods were chosen when lower cost systems were available. Nor do other possible constraints- the scarcity of skilled workers, the quality of product, or information on possible alternatives, explain the choice of methods which were not the most economically efficient.

The divorce of industrial investment decisions from clear national policy commented on by missions from both the World Bank and the ILO has probably been due to the nature of the decision-making process and the management of foreign aid. Studies in other developing countries have noted a tendency for the appraisal of investment schemes to be dominated by engineers, who are concerned to maximise output, often assuming unrealistic levels of utilisation, than by economists, who should select on the basis of cost efficiency. This factor may be present within the Tanzanian bureaucracy and a general absence of adequate staff to assess projects may have led Ministries to tend to approve projects on the oo.sis of having identified a source of funding, the usual funding agent being a foreign government, or a transnational corporation. Parastatal managers ha.ve tended to judge their success in terms of expanding output by starting new projects. Hence their preference has been for projects that can be started quickly. Their protected position means that parastatals have been little concerned with profitability and hence they have accepted the technology offered by the source of finance rather than search for the most economic or appropriate.

The existence of SIDO may even have acted as a justification for other parastatals to ignore small-scale industry ~s not being their responsibility. There are certainly examples of new large-scale investment being planned to meet total national needs even when SIDO has had plans and programmes to expand small-scale production of the product. Loom-weaving, hand-made paper. hand-tool making by blacksmiths, grain-milling, saw-milling, oil-milling. shoe-making and open pan sugar milling are in this category.

Perkins concludes that Tanzania’s rate of industrial growth and the growth of the national income would have been faster if the declared national policy had been followed. His research has given further insight into the power of the industrialised nations to influence to their own advantage the development of the economies of the Third World countries and the importance of examining with considerable care what aid, technical assistance and private investment are actually achieving for the economies of both donor and receiver.

John Arnold

SOME ITEMS OF NEWS

Death of Prime Minister Edward Moringe Sokoine
Ndugu Sokoine was killed as a result of a road accident on April 12th. on his way from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam. His car collided with a land cruiser driven by Dumisani Dube, a member of the African National Congress (ANC). The Prime Minister was fatally injured and died on the way to hospital in Morogoro.

Ndugu Sokoine was born at Kisongo near Monduli in 1938. He was educated at Monduli Primary School, Umbwe Secondary School and the Mzumbe Local Government Training College. He then went to Germany for further training in administration and finance.

In 1965 he was appointed to a post in the Masai District Council and in the same year became a Member of Parliament. In 1967 he became Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Commerce, Transportation and Labour and in 1970 Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office. In 1972 he was appointed Minister of Defence and National Service, a post that he held until 1977, when he was promoted to the post of Prime Minister. In 1980 he was obliged to relinquish this position for health reasons. After his recovery, he was again appointed Prime Minister in February, 1983, a post that he held until his untimely death.

Ndugu Sokoine was hard working and self-disciplined and a person of complete integrity. One of the very few Masai who have played a prominent part in national affairs, he maintained close contacts with his own people and was appointed Haigwanani, or leader, of the Masai in Kisongo, the place of his birth. In others he expected his own high standards and took a leading part in the campaign against economic saboteurs (see Bulletin No.17). He is understood to have been closely involved in the creation of National Service at the time of its inauguration in the early 1970’s.

The death of Ndugu Sokoine is a very serious loss to Tanzania at a time of great national difficulty and has deprived it of a distinguished leader.

Some national trends
Real national income per head in Tanzania has been falling since 1979. This is partly due to flagging production, but is also the consequence of a high rate of population growth. The World Bank records an average growth rate of 3.4% between 1972 and 1980 and forecasts a rate of 3.5% for the period from 1980 to 2000. The total population is now over 20 million and is expected to reach 26 million by 1990 and 36 million by the year 2000.

This very high rate of growth is due to the spread of health services, resulting in a considerable fall in mortality. Life expectancy at birth has risen from 40 in 1960 for males to 51 years in 1982 and for females from 43 in 1960 to 54 in 1982. In the meantime, infant mortality has fallen between the same dates from 144 per thousand to 98 and the child death rate (aged 1 to 4) from 31 to 18.

The Constitution
As noted in Bulletin No.17, considerable thought is being given to some necessary changes in Tanzania’s constitution and the constitution of Zanzibar. Some initial proposals were drawn up by the National Executive Committee of the Party and published for public discussion. The reactions of organisations and individuals have been collected at Party Headquarters and in June they received the consideration of the National Executive Committee. The outcome of this consideration of the amendment proposals by the NEC has now been published (June 7th.).

The NEC recommend that the Union Constitution should have entrenched within it a Bill of Rights, which would encompass human rights and obligations and the safeguarding of the public interest.

The NEC recommend a reversion to the previous practice of having two Vice-Presidents, one being the President of Zanzibar and the other the Prime Minister of the Union. The Union Presid0nt would be chairman of the cabinet and would appoint the Ministers on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Powers under the Preventive Detention Act would remain with the President, but the procedures used would be legally binding and detention would be subject to periodic review. The names of detainees should be published in the Gazette and provision should be made to enable those detained to dispute the grounds for their detention. A similar provision should be made in the Zanzibar Constitution.

The President’s power to declare war, or a state of emergency, should be subject to seeking a mandate from a joint session of the NEC and Parliament within 14 days.

The main powers to appoint and discipline public servants should be vested in the Public Service Commission, with the exception of the most senior officials in sensitive and important ministerial and parastatal positions.

The Constitution of Zanzibar should uphold the independence of the judiciary. While the Court of Appeal would be empowered by the Union, it would be necessary for Zanzibar to introduce a system of primary, district and high courts similar to those on the mainland.

The powers of parliament would be strengthened and it would be made clear that the Prime Minister (and the Chief Minister of Zanzibar) were in overall charge of government business and were responsible to the National Assembly (House of Representatives in the case of Zanzibar). The functions of the two parliaments would include the consideration and approval of development plans. Both houses would have permanent secretariats and would form permanent committees to supervise the implementation of policies.

The Musoma Resolution

It was decided by the National Executive Committee of the Party (TANU) in 1974 that students admitted to the University of Dar es Salaam should have worked for two years and should carry a positive recommendation from their TANU branch. It was found necessary at an early stage to relax this requirement in the case of women on account of the small number able to qualify on such terms, and also in the case of most of those entering the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Agriculture. At a meeting of the NEC on 31st. May, 1984, this condition of entry was relaxed and henceforth it will be possible for all students to enter the University after completing their sixth form studies and one year in the National Service. The NEC, however, emphasised the importance of retaining the existing provisions for mature entry.

Education
The NEC has been considering the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Education, the contents of which are not yet public. One recommendation emerging from the report, which was endorsed by the NEC, was that the need for secondary education expansion should be met as far as possible by creating day schools within easy reach of communities. Apart from the reduction in cost, such a development would harness local effort to contribute towards the initial outlay.

The Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Science of the University of Dar es Salaam at Morogoro became on July 1st. the independent Sokoine University of Agriculture.

Law reform
On 21st. May, 1980, an Act of Parliament received presidential assent
establishing a Law Reform Commission of Tanzania to review the existing law and propose measures for bringing it into line with current circumstances in Tanzania, for the elimination of anomalies and defects and for improved simplification of the law; to advise on the more effective administration of the law; to prepare programmes for the reform of laws and their consolidation and revision at the request of the Attorney General. The initial members of the Commission are:
Ndugu Augustine Saidi, former Chief Justice
Ndugu Pius Msekwa, Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister and Chairman of the Judicial System Review Commission of 1974-77
Ndugu D.Z. Lubuva, former Attorney General of Zanzibar
Ndugu J. Kanywanyi, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam
Ndugu F.B. Mahatane, private advocate in Arusha
Ndugu M. Ismail, private advocate in Dar es Salaam

The Commission will draw upon the detailed and valuable recommendations of the Judicial System Review Commission. The Commission has been asked to consider the possibility of establishing ward and village tribunals; to review the Companies Ordinance in the light of the Arusha Declaration; to review the legal profession with particular reference to private practice and the role of the Tanzania Legal Corporation without jeopardising the rights of individuals to legal assistance; the causes of delay in civil suits; and the possibility of statutory compensation for persons injured while assisting the police.

Destruction of the Bank of Tanzania by fire
The main building in Dar es Salaam of the Bank of Tanzania was completely destroyed by fire in the early hours of May 17th. 1984. The cause of fire is not yet known. It is understood that the strong room in the basement, where vital records and currency are kept, has not been affected. But the loss of current documents and records will be serious. It is, however, thought that copies of certain records are kept at the National Bank of Commerce.

The Tanzania Railway Corporation needs £100 million to replace track on the 1,600 miles of the central line, which is now carrying goods in and out of Burundi, Uganda and Eastern Zaire.

The annual report of the Customs and Excise Department states that in the past 12 months illegal imports and exports worth Shs. 5 million were seized at border posts. The most commonly smuggled items were TV sets, which are very scarce since their import was banned five years ago.

The 1980-81 tourist season earned Tanzania shs.13 million from the export of wildlife and game trophies.

Social services
Members of the Presidential Commission on Education (see Bulletin no.13 of July, 1981) divided into 3 groups to make two week tours of Africa, Europe and the Far East.

The Tanzania Agricultural Machinery Testing Unit (TAMTU) is to be merged with the Arusha Appropriate. Technology Unit (AATP).

The Kilombero Sugar Training Centre, built with assistance from the Netherlands, was opened in August.

The Minister for Information and Culture, Ndugu Ben Mkapa, himself a former journalist, has officially opened the Tanzania School of Journalism at Mgulani in Dar es Salaam.

The Minister of Health, Dr. Aaron Kiduo, criticised the country’s doctors at the annual conference of the Medical Association of Tanzania, describing their performance as mediocre and a decline in ethical standards, which was producing public discontent. He claimed that too many doctors had entered the profession simply to obtain a comfortable living. The Minister has also announced that the law banning private hospitals passed in 1977 is to be enforced and that commercial hospitals are to be closed.

In an address to the nation in Swahili carried by Dar es Salaam radio on 5th August, President Nyerere said that since the start of adult education in 1970 many Tanzanians had learned to read and write and to do simple calculations. While it was not known exactly how many Tanzanians had acquired that ability, it was known that by 1977 over 6 million had registered for adult education courses; in 1975 over 3,800,000 had sat the exams and the number in 1977 was 2,346,154. Those who had passed the third and final fourth stage exams could be regarded as having overcome illiteracy to the extent that they were ready to begin further reading of books and newspapers. It was not known how well the nearly 3,500,000 people at present registered for adult education classes were progressing, for, by January of this year, many had stopped attending, some of them possibly because they had completed the course and were ready to sit the tests, which had not been set for the last four years. At present it was not known how many Tanzanians could read or write, or how well; nor was it known whether the learners and their teachers were being provided with the services they required.

Foreign relations
A military pact with Uganda provides for Tanzanian troops to train Ugandan troops in Uganda, but they will not become involved in security operations.

In a further attempt to end cattle rustling on the Kenya border, Tanzanian police have disarmed people who do not have firearms licences. This is part of a long-term strategy of improving relations with Kenya.

Tentative agreement has been reached with Malawi on the definition of a new border to replace the river Songwe, which in the past has caused confusion by changing its course.

The British High Commissioner in Tanzania, Sir Peter Moon, has said that within the past two year period more than 700 Tanzanian students have been trained by the British Government. He said, although it would be difficult for Britain to continue training large numbers of students because of rising costs, his country would continue to assist Tanzanian students going abroad for further studies.

General
As from 1st. October all residents of Tanzania will require the approval of the Bank of Tanzania for foreign travel even if fares are being paid for in foreign exchange by foreign sponsors.

Some passengers were stranded at Kilimanjaro International Airport in the middle of September because large aircraft were unable to land due to lack of fire fighting equipment. Services to Tabora and Songea were suspended for the same reason.

President Nyerere has been awarded the second Third World Prize by the Third World Foundation for Social and Economic Studies. This prize of one hundred thousand dollars and a medallion is conferred for outstanding contributions to Third W0rld Development in the economic, social, political, or scientific fields. The Foundation said that Mwalimu had played a key role in interpreting Africa to the world and the world to Africa. His ideas and values had been a source of inspiration and guidance to Africans across the continent and to people throughout the Third World in their pursuit of development, self-respect and genuine independence.