a) Economic depression

A Bank of Tanzania bulletin earlier this year gave details of recent economic performance. In the season 1974/5 coffee output was down by 7%; cashewnut production down by 20%; sisal production for the first nine months of 1975 was down by 18%; the 1975 cotton harvest was the lowest for years. The export of industrial goods fell by 50% in the first nine months of 1975. The total export earnings were down 10% from the same period in 1974 and Tanzania’s trade deficit had significantly increased.

b) Economy measures

The civil service in Tanzania has grown rapidly. Early this year there were an estimated 140,000 civil servants – 70% more than the official figure for early 1975. However in July 1975 President Nyerere announced plans to reduce the civil service by 20% by means of early retirements, cutting of over-manning, etc. In March 1976 the Ministry of Manpower Development confirmed that 9,496 civil servants had been declared redundant effective from February 29th.

c) Operation Maduka

The Tanzanian Government has decreed that all private shops in state farms, ujamaa villages and the vicinity of state owned industries should close and be replaced by cooperatives run by local residents and workers. After the district licensing committee in Mwanza rejected 285 applications for individual trade licences and the district Secretary told a rally that no further licences would be issued for private shops and guest houses, the government modified its intention to implement the decree ‘with immediate effect’, and announced a phased plan whereby private shops would be allowed to operate in areas where no cooperative ‘ stores yet exist. But every effort will be made to set up cooperative stores throughout the country and thereafter private shops will cease to exist. The magazine Africa comments in its June issue:

‘Regional trading corporations – have been established and they act as the sole distribution agents ,in the countryside. Even the smallest of the cooperative shops in the remotest village can, therefore, be assured of commodities. More than 90% of Tanzanians today live in communal villages. Each village will be registered as a co-operative unit to handle trade and act as the marketing agent for crops. To check against the dangers of village tycoons capitalising on the venture, it has been decreed that no person can purchase more than ten shares. The State bank has been directed to loan village cooperatives to help them set up shops. The Housing Bank likewise has been asked to assist villages to put up modest business premises. And the Regional distributors have been told to give villages preferential treatment. To make the cooperatives more viable and efficient a World Bank assisted programme has been established to train village heads in basic business techniques and accounting procedure. The main fear seems to be the ability to find able men and women to operate the cooperative shops in the countryside … the socialisation of petty trade usually necessitates heavy documentation which may well render the shops unable to meet credit obligations. Indeed, the pertinent question remains: will Tanzania be able to run petty trade on socialist structures when the entire economy framework is firmly tied onto the international capitalist system ?’

d) Foreign Policy

In statements this month the Tanzanian Government has condemned the Israeli raid on Entebbe and has announced the withdrawal of Tanzanian athletes from the Olympic Games. Both statements amount to more than routine reactions. Tanzania has in the past strongly condemned the regime of General Amin but makes the distinction between the right of Ugandans to resist a regime which has oppressed them and the lack of legitimacy of the Israeli action. In Bayi the Tanzanians possess one of the leading athletes of the world; withdrawal from the Games has deprived the nation of an ‘almost certain medal.

e) The magazine Africa in its July issue carries a 30 page Saba Saba supplement in which there are features on the implementation of ujamaa, the movement of the capital to Dodoma, mining, communications, etc., and a general survey of political, economic and social developments.

On October 22nd 1975 the first passenger train left Kapiri Mposhi station in Zambia with representatives of China, Zambia and Tanzania aboard. It drew into Dar es Salaam station on Friday, October 24th. The magazine Africa reports: ‘For the comfort of a first class journey (over the 1,160 miles) the passenger pays K 28.17, second class fare is less than half that at K 12.68 and the third class fare – designed for people making only short journeys is exceptionally low, just half the second class fare. For a trial period until next year this passenger service will run once a week between the two terminals. Then the line will be fully operational and the number of departures will increase substantially, as will the number of freight services which at the moment run once a day in both directions . ‘

Africa continues; ‘The Chinese construction camps once a familiar sight along the route have gone. So have the doctors who dispensed free medical treatment and the engineers who provided new water supplies and roads to remote rural areas. But the friendship between the countries still prevails and aid is still given by China. Some technicians have remained to supervise the final work on the railway and to help with its administration, but the Chinese have already trained 200 Tanzanians and Zambians at their own Communications University’. According to Africa, ‘Malawi is enthusiastic for a line to be built through the Luangwa Valley to connect Serenje, on the Uhuru railway, with Mchinji, which will shortly be the western end of the line to Nacala (on the Indian ocean)… A more likely scheme is a railway through Solwezi from the Copperbelt. New copper deposits are to be exploited in North-Western Province and this line would be viable, carrying copper to Luso in Angola.’

The Tanzanian Government responded to the droughts and depressed economic conditions of the past two or three years by placing a greater urgency on the policy of regrouping people in village settlements. In August TANU national headquarters published a booklet which claimed that 9,140,229 people now lived in villages on the mainland of Tanzania; Mwanza region alone is said to have a million people in villages. Last year there were widespread reports, including many in the Tanzanian press, of resistance to villagisation and of strongarm methods in some areas to overcome that resistance. Apparently this was most acute in the Njombe area. Visitors to the south-eastern region of the territory report that almost 100% of the people there now live in newly created village settlements, there has been some resentment at the destruction of houses outside the new settlements and some delays in payment of compensation; there have also been delays in getting water piped to some of the new settlements and some are thought to be already too large. It was freely predicted in the South-East, and elsewhere, that there would be a larger negative vote in the Presidential election as a reflection of this resentment. In fact the no vote did increase in the recent election, doubling from 3% to 6% but this hardly represents a massive repudiation. President Nyerere claimed at the Party Congress that the policy of pressing ahead with villagisation despite the risks had succeeded; people were settling in to their new homes; and services were being provided.

Jonathan Power, writing in Encounter for November 1975, gives the following version of the villagisation process; ‘Since the beginning of 1974 the Government has placed great emphasis on the need to move people into ujamaa villages at any cost. Moving is no longer a matter of ‘providing incentives’; it is just compulsory … However at the same time the government has given up its insistence on communal production. This is a response to the sharp drop in food production which these sudden shifts of population combined with drought have brought about. The World Bank, attempting to put into practice its new commitment to the small farmer, has been investigating the potential of these Ujamaa villages; and its observations on their potential are encouraging for Tanzania. The Bank is now strongly supporting an ujamaa scheme involving 250,OOO people in the Kigoma region. Its financial contribution will be spent on the inputs of new improved seed and fertiliser, marketing and credit systems, extension services, irrigation and access roads. This aid will amount to 225 dollars per family, of which Tanzania will provide 25%. The World Bank officials .. appeared to be confident that within ten years village-and-family-income would be doubled. (At present per-capita annual income in Kigoma is 20 dollars, well below Tanzania’s average.) They also reckon that the economic rate-of-return on the project will be 23% a year – which is of course well above what a private investor would hope to get out of the average industrial enterprise.’ (Jonathan Power, ‘The Alternative to Starvation: Despair, Dogma and Hope in the Third World’, Encounter, November 1975).

Meanwhile, we have been sent two accounts of visits to Tanzania which include a description of life in an Ujamaa village. One writes: ‘The village had recently harvested a considerable crop of wheat which was to be sold on behalf of the community. Village affairs are run by an elected body of twelve officers (in this case 7 women and 5 men) who are responsible, amongst other things for allocating private land to each family and deciding how long each day an individual must work on the communal lands. The wealth created is kept in the village by sales through a co-operative shop, which in this case was well stocked with essential items of food and clothing. Piped water ran from a dam constructed by the community, and the women were thereby spared their traditional trek of miles a day to fetch water. The primary school teaches Swahili, English, mathematics and science, and over the whole village lay a sense of purpose in communal activity that could never be generated among a scattered rural population. It was stressed that the village must be self-reliant … no government handouts to lame ducks!’ The second account is very probably of the same village, which is situated near Iringa. It is equally enthusiastic. ‘The people seem proud of their achievements … The children in school are keen to ask us questions. ‘What will you tell about us in England? How can you help us? If so many people live in the towns how can you grow enough food?’ We also meet the villagers at the end of the day in the barn. One of them proudly shows us the sacks of wheat. “We could not have produced so much individually”.’

The University has also been involved in the drive to grow more food. There are little shambas all over the campus and lecturers proudly display sacks of rice in their studies. The Agricultural Faculty at Morogoro has gained great praise for ‘turning into a productive unit instead of just being a demonstration piece’. On the 1,073 hectare farm the Faculty produced a bumper crop, estimated at 30,000 bags of maize, 1,800 bags of rice, 1,200 bags of sorghum and 450 tons of cassava. This was being harvested by volunteers from the Defence Force, secondary schools , Corporation employees and others.

The University is also in the first year of the new system of student intake. This means that students do not enter straight from secondary school but only after they have been in employment for some years and then with the recommendation of their employer and the local TANU branch. Arts and Social Science lecturers speak with pleasure of the increased maturity, responsiveness and questioning of these students; the Science Faculty is worried about the danger of students becoming very stale in the gap between school and university; meanwhile an unintended result is the drop in the proportion of women students entering the university, many women having become mothers during the period since leaving school and finding it difficult to leave their families.

The University has to seek to make do with a considerable reduction in its operating grant. At the same time there has been announced a plan for major extensions, to be constructed at the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Agriculture, and the main campus. Developments will include further student accommodation and dining rooms; a new surgical unit with two operating theatres; the building of an aquarium at the Marine Biology Station at Kunduchi, and many other projects.

A catalogue of ‘publications produced by the departments, institutes and bureaux of the University’ has been issued. This most useful listing is some hundred pages long and indicates which publications are available free and the price of the rest. It can be obtained from Aidan Turner Bishop, Librarian, Acquisitions Department, University of Dar es Salaam Library, P.O. Box 35092, University Hill, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The publications themselves may be ordered from the University Bookshop, P.O. Box 35090.

The High Commission of the United Republic of Tanzania, 43 Hertford Street, London W.1, has issued a booklet designed as ‘an aide memoire to our many friends in the British Isles’. It is entitled ‘An Introduction to the United Republic of Tanzania’ and can be obtained from the High Commission. The November issue of the New Internationalist is devoted to ‘over 150 articles on people taking ACTION for a better world’. Among these are accounts of a campaign in Switzerland for the marketing of Tanzanian coffee, with give-away leaflets not promising free gifts but explaining the main outlines of Tanzania’s situation and policy.

This appeared in TA issue 36, May 1990

Mr A. S. Baj, Member of Parliament for Iringa complained in the House that such greetings as ‘All my love’, ‘Fondest love darling’ and ‘Love and kisses’ reflected foreign sentiment in text as well as being monotonously repetitive. He urged changes so that greetings would reflect the sentiment, traditions and social, religious and cultural heritage of the people of East Africa.

Replying for the Government. the Minister of State in the Directorate of Development and Planning, Mr Jamal, pointed out that the expressions were international – Tanganyika Standard. March 17 1965.

The following appears in TA issue 76 (Sept 2003)

The following extracts are taken from the Tanganyika Standard in 1953:

11th July 1953.
His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar has returned from his visit to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in London. As his yacht drew alongside the harbour, a large crowd composed of members of all communities gave him a big welcome ……….. under his inspired leadership there is probably no more contented community than that to be found in Zanzibar. (The Zanzibar revolution took place three years later -Ed).

19th September 1953.
The latest census of the non-native population gives the following figures -Europeans 10,648, Indians 44,248, Arabs 11,074, Goans 2,000 and others 2,184. Nearly all Europeans describe themselves as Christians except for 276 Jews, ‘heathens’ or ‘not stated’. Of the total non-European population, Islam represented 23%, Hindus 24%, Shia Ismaili Khoja 22%, Roman Catholics 7.7% per cent, Anglicans 6%, Sikhs 2% and Greek Orthodox 1.7%.

31st October 1953.
Tanganyika may introduce L-plates for learner drivers. At present learners are restricted to unfrequented roads but a Bill to be presented to the Legislative Council will change this.

26th December 1953.
Hundreds of Tanganyika police joined in a large-scale operation at dawn on Wednesday in an effort to curb the growing Mau Mau movement among the 8,000 Kikuyu living in the Northern Province. This followed the surprise arrival in Arusha of the Governor, Sir Edward Twining. From positions taken up during the night outside Kikuyu settlements within a 100 mile radius of Arusha, the police arrived to arrest a carefully prepared blacklist of some 138 suspects. The Chagga Council in Moshi had earlier expressed its concern about the Mau Mau threat and the Waarusha Council has petitioned the Government on similar lines.

This was published in TA 74, Jan 2003

These extracts are from the Tanganyika Standard in 1952:

Sauti ya Dar es Salaam announced that it hoped to build a new 20 kilowatt short-wave transmitter by 1954 so that people outside Oar Salaam could hear the radio station. It was also reported that listeners were complaining about the absence of readings from the Koran on radio and about announcers who did not pronounce Swahili correctly.

The rounding up of 158 Kikuyu men in the Northern and Tanga provinces, who were suspected of Mau Mau sympathies, was completed in early November.

This appeared in TA 70, September 2001

Extracts from the Tanganyika Standard in 1951:

21st July 1951 – The general Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in 1950 recommending that the flag of the UN should be flown over all its trust territories (including Tanganyika) side by side with the flag of the administering authority (the UK). The UK abstained from voting on the issue but the Tanganyika government subsequently agreed that the UN flag would be flown on appropriate days like the anniversary of the United Nations Charter, the UN Day and when there were visits by Trusteeship Council visiting missions to Tanganyika.

August 4 1951 – Five rioters were reported killed on 25th July in Zanzibar
following the arrest of a group of 19 African cattle owners who had refused to have their animals inoculated against anthrax (Arab and Indian cattle owners had agreed to the inoculations). They were sentenced to six weeks hard labour but then people attacked the police van taking them to jail and released them. The crowd went on to attack the prison and advanced on Senior Assistant Superintendant E.H. Hull and 40 police officers who opened fire to protect themselves. Some 120 volunteer police were sent over later from Dar es Salaam but stayed for only five days until peace had returned. Seven men including a policeman were later convicted of rioting and sentenced to from six months to three years in jail .A public inquiry was appointed under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of Zanzibar. On August 11 the last 117 cattle were inoculated. This was said to have been the first serious trouble in Zanzibar since the 1948 docks strike.

August 18 1951 – A 130-mile oil pipeline from Mtwara to Nachingwe built in 1949 at a cost of £400,000 for the failed Ground Scheme was sold to the Israeli government for £250,000. Some 300 tractors and several thousand other vehicles left over from the Groundnut Scheme were still to be sold.

August 18 1951 – Record prices were paid at the customs auction yesterday for ivory (18 shillings a pound) with even smaller tusks going for £60. Rhino horn got 54 shillings a pound and hippo teeth £4.90.

August 18 1951 – District Officer K R E Dobbs (27), who had been sentenced
to nine months hard labour in Jury by magistrate F W Theeman for stealing by a public servant and four months for uttering a false document, appealed to the High Court against the sentence. At a trial arranged just 45 minutes after he had been originally charged, he admitted that elephant tusks had been brought in by a game Scout, he had declared them to be his property and he had not shot the elephants himself. He said that therefore he had to admit that he was guilty. At the end of the appeal the Chief Justice said there must be a new trial under a new magistrate because of doubt about the nature of his plea of guilty. (The result of the second trial is not known – Editor).

October 13 1951 – 1000 lamp bulbs are being stolen from coaches on the Central Railway Line each year. “Locking rings” are to be introduced.