TANZANIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Posted on January 1, 2002 by editor

PRAISE FOR NEGOTIATING SKILLS
Tanzania and its embattled former Minister of Trade and Industry Iddi Simba (see above) got a mention in both the FINANCIAL TIMES and the WALL STREET JOURNAL on November 15 when the newspapers reported extensively on the 142 -member World Trade Organisation’s ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar. ‘In Doha’ the FT wrote ‘the developing countries …. came of age. Led by Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, they proved adept at building coalitions, formulating goals and co-ordinating tactics. They won praise for their negotiating skills and for getting results’. The USA made many concessions on trade and on allowing poorer countries to manufacture their own drugs regardless of patent rights. The Wall Street Journal quoted Minister Simba as praising US delegate Mr Zoellick “He put this whole thing together” Simba said (Thank you Benu Schneider for sending us these two articles -Editor).

WELCOME FOR THE AGREEMENT
The media generally warmly welcomed the agreement between the main parties in Zanzibar but had some reservations as to whether it would be successfully implemented. AFRICA ANALYSIS (October 19) asked whether Seif Shariff had become Tanzania’s ‘man of the moment’ or ‘was he a sell-out’? Had he forged a new way ahead or backed into a dead end? The agreement fell far short of CUF’s main demands for the elections to be re-run and for President Karume to step down. But the release of imprisoned CUF leaders had placated restless CUF militants. Hamad’s detractors, who included Tanzania Labour Party leader Augustine Mrema, made much play of the fact that the deal had restored to Hamad certain benefits -a pension, a car, security detail, an office and house servants. On the other hand, Hamad’s supporters as well as foreign diplomats had hailed him as a ‘statesman’ for his flexibility in agreeing to the accord.

GRIM LIFE FOR TANZANITE MINERS
The daily life of small-scale Tanzanite miners at Mererani, near Arusha was graphically described in a recent article in the EAST AFRICAN by Kate Gehring. The area being mined is a 5-square-mile area of graphite rock. Extracts from the article: ‘Mererani is full of young men. Its muddy streets are lined with bars, shops and stores selling provisions. A series of painted rocks faces traffic along the twisting rocky approach road. The first one says in Swahili ‘God is Great’; the second, a kilometre later, this says that ‘God exists’. There is also a local version of Dante’s inscription on the gates of hell “abandon hope, all ye who enter here”…. It’s bleak and menacing. The miners, in essence, are gamblers and their desperation is palpable. There are 310 small companies and two large holdings, Kilimanjaro Mines and AFGEM”. The article describes the marketing: The stones pass through several channels between Mererani and international dealers. Looking like a field of desert blooming poppies, red blanket clad Maasai traders set up small tables along the hillsides facing the claim covered hills. They act as middlemen between the miners and Asian dealers in Mererani and other towns…… In January 10 miners suffocated when the air from a compression hose was interrupted by groundwater……Fights are another serious threat. 33 people died in fights last year. The most dangerous brawls break out underground when one group’s dynamite blasts into another’s territory’.

The WALL STREET JOURNAL quoted on November 16 the legend that Maasai tribesmen discovered the Tanzanite gem when a bolt of lightening set fire to the plains and some crystals on the ground turned blue. In 1967 an Indian geologist identified the stone as a rare form of the mineral zoisite and determined that it turned a velvety blue when heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. New York’s Tiffany & Co. named it Tanzanite and it soon became a marketing phenomenon. Its popularity soared when film fans learned that the sapphire heartshaped pendant Kate Winslet hurled into the sea in the film ‘Titanic’ was actually Tanzanite. By then the US was selling $380 million worth of the gems -but Tanzania’s receipts were said to have totalled only $16 million last year.

The South African publication SUNDAY BUSINESS REPORT (2nd September) reported that African Gem Resources (AFGEM), the year -old gemstone mining company, which has taken over one of the four blocks, expected its Mererani mine to be fully operational by the end of the year now that it had seen off a legal challenge in the Tanzanian High Court. By the end of the year AFGEM expected to have invested $20 million and hoped to get a yield of more than 20 million carats by the time its lease expired in 2020. Since the late sixties the trade in Tanzanite had been dominated by artisan miners working diggings in poorly ventilated shafts. When cut and polished the US market for Tanzanite jewellery was estimated to be worth $300 million a year (Thank you David Leishman for sending this item and the two below -Editor).

AND GOLD MINING
The Malawi NATION (October 16) reported on a controversial video, said to include interviews with local miners at the Canadianrun Bunyanhulu mine in Kahama, in which they allege that some of their colleagues were buried alive in 1996 during the filling in of mining pits. The NATION reported that human rights organisations were calling for an independent enquiry but that the government and the past owners of the mine had repeatedly denied the allegations and the veracity of the video. (Since then the matter has become a political issue with Tanzania Labour Party leader Augustine Mrema claiming that he has a copy of the video and refusing to hand it over to the police -Editor).

South Africa’s BUSINESS DAY wrote on September 27 that hawkers at traffic junctions in Johannesburg were absolute amateurs compared with their innovative cousins in Tanzania. ‘Pull up at a crossroads in Dar es Salaam and you can buy pillows, an electric food blender, a tennis racquet with balls and a reflective red triangle for your car – all from one hyperactive hawker’. The article went on to describe the remarkable success of Vodacom in selling cellphones -120,000 in its first year (Mobitel has 90,000, Tritel 20,000 and Zantel 26,000.

FIGHTING BACK
‘Thoroughly gripped by the Aids pandemic, Tanzania is fighting back with all it has. Artists and other professionals have rallied behind the nation in the war against the disease.’ So began an article in NEW AFRICAN (October) which went on: “The deceased made a blunder. He did not wear a condom” sings a musician in a Swahili rap beat….. The Arusha Regional Commissioner has threatened to prosecute owners of guesthouses who do not supply condoms to their guests….. AIDS is punching Tanzania so hard at that its once staunch religious fundamentalists are thinking twice about their rejection of the condom. “If people cannot control their desire, they should wear a condom to check the spread of HIV”, Bishop Sam Baiano of the Anglican Church said recently.

‘HE WAS LUCKY’
‘The soldiers came at night. 15 year-old Donacie Buchimi heard screams and gunshots, and the next morning his neighbour was lying beheaded in the dirt. Donacie fled, running barefoot through the Burundian rainforest for two days until he stumbled into Tanzania. He was lucky. Had he fled in the opposite direction, he would have ended up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country as wracked as his own. Tanzania, in contrast, has been peaceful for as long as anyone can remember and is unusually hospitable to those in need’. So began an article in the August 25 issue of the ECONOMIST under the heading ‘The penalty of kindness’ – ‘In some areas, refugees outnumber locals by as much as 5-1. Everywhere in Western Tanzania the influx has been disruptive. When there is a hiccup in the delivery of food, many refugees rob nearby villages. That this has not led to bloodshed is a testament to the mildness of the local people….’ But as one farmer said “They cause trouble. Every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, on their way back from the market, they enter our homes and steal things. Bored with their monotonous rations, they trade them for bananas and meat….local subsistence farmers have suffered because the prices of maize and beans have plunged because of the free supply doled out in the camps. The wages they can earn working for their neighbours have fallen, because refugees, though officially barred from working outside the camps, do so in large numbers…. (Thank you Jill Bowden for this item – Editor).

CASE COMPLEXITY
TRAVEL AFRICA (surely the most captivating of all travel magazines – Editor) surprisingly had only two items on Tanzania in its bulky Summer 2001 issue -there are usually several. The first, under the heading ‘Jurassic Safari’ said that Brachiosaurus, the heaviest of all prehistoric animals (possibly up to 100 tons) and the heaviest land vertebrate of all time, used to roam near Tendaguru in southern Tanzania 150 million years ago. The article speculated that, because of its weight, it probably spent less time on land than in the Rift Valley lakes where its bulk (up to 27 metres length above ground) would be buoyed by the water. The second article recounted the complexity of some of the cases dealt with by AMREF’s Flying Doctor surgeons -third degree bums covering large parts of the body, leprosy patients missing parts of ears and noses, cleft lips and horrendous skin cancer melanomas. At Bukumbi Hospital in Northern Tanzania, where hygiene is described as good and staff well-organised, on January 20th ‘a woman is brought in with leprosy who cannot close her eyelids. Two surgeons open up her scalp and twist some muscles behind the ears until they meet at the bridge of her nose. When they are stitched in place the woman is told to close her eyes. She does. Everyone is electrified and the woman’s fingerless hand tries to clutch the surgeon’s arm as a smile of joy and thanks trembles at her paralysed lips’.

THE ‘MAGIC CORNER’
Under the heading ‘Trunk line to the spirit world’ Karl Vick, writing in the WASHINGTON POST (12th November) described what he called the ‘Magic Corner’, a strip of land between the turquoise sea and a row of luxurious white villas north of downtown Dar Salaam. Extracts from the article: ‘In this corner there is a huge and ancient baobab tree … It is as much a wall as a tree and people remove their shoes before kneeling in front of it, their eyes closed, their backs to the Indian Ocean, and their money in the pocket of the ‘witch doctor’ who invariable brings them to this enchanted confluence of sea, earth and commerce. “This place is like a mosque” said Ali Selengia, standing barefoot in the shadow of the great tree on Kenyatta Drive. His wife, a traditional healer, passed a coconut around and around the head of her kneeling client. When she handed him the coconut he hurled it onto a stone. It shattered, releasing his problems to the winds. “Today, myself, I have some evil spirits that are making me ill” he explained “so I came here”. The article went on to say that Arab traders did not introduce Islam to Africa until the 10th century and Christian missionaries had little success spreading their message until the end of the 19th. Neither faith has quite managed to overcome the spiritual connections fashioned in the previous l30,000 years … The tree shows evidence of very heavy use. Hundreds… of iron nails protrude from the trunk, a few still holding in place folded squares of paper bearing wishes – some for relief, others for revenge. But the writing is legible only to the spirits … Other tokens are more cryptic. Feathers stuffed in a sea shell and left on the ground; a broken clay pot containing ashes and rusted razor blades; the dried carcass of a puffer fish dangling from a high branch, a scrap of paper in its mouth……. (Thank you Nick Westcott for sending this and another item from Washington -Editor).

POPULATION GROWTH
Writing in a recent issue of WHITE FATHERS – WHITE SISTERS, Father Martin van de Ven described his many years of work in Mwanza and the surrounding area. He said that when Tanzania got independence in 1961 the population was 30,000 but it had now reached 700,000 with an annual natural increase of 3% and another 8% through immigration. Every hill in the town was full of houses. The fishing industry was said to be booming with eight fish processing factories employing more than 4,000 employees and thousands of private fishermen. Estimates were given in the same issue of the number of people of different faiths in Tanzania (1998):
Catholics 11,643,000 (34%)
Protestants 6,107,000 (18%)
Muslims 11,916,000 (35%)
Hindus 10,000
Other faiths 3,954,000 (12%).
(Thank You John Sankey for sending this item -Editor).

GENDER BUDGET PROTESTS
Britain’s Department for International Development has issued a special edition of ‘DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION UPDATE’ under the heading Civil Society and National Policy in which some prominence is given to the successful Gender Budgeting Initiative in Tanzania, described in an earlier issue of TA. It quoted the presentation by Agrippina Mosha at a recent workshop which set out some of the opportunities and challenges arising from the involvement of civil society in the initiative. The full version of her paper includes a description of the objectives and achievements of the programme, an analysis of focal areas for donor support and the opportunities created by social and political reforms in Tanzania. Details from: Tgnp@muchs.ac.tz.

The Gender Network received further publicity when Agrippina Mosha and others were quoted in WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT IN ACTION (Winter 2000) as having been angered when they learnt that when the heads of the World Bank and IMF were in Dar, only one hour of their time had been scheduled for meeting NGO’s. They therefore organised a demonstration at the Sheraton Hotel and unfurled placards with strong messages: ‘We want total debt cancellation’, ‘IMF and World Bank stop exploiting Africa’ …. They were arrested and held for six hours.

VIRODENE
Three prominent articles in South Africa’s BUSINESS DAY and MAIL AND GUARDIAN in September (Thank you David Leishman for these -Editor) reported that two South Africans had been deported from Tanzania for allegedly illegally testing ‘Virodene’, an anti-AIDS drug, on 64 Tanzanian army personnel. Zigi Visser and Themba Khumalo had entered Tanzania illegally and the trials were said to have been registered with the Tanzanian authorities. The couple were alleged to have left behind a string of debts including a $7,780 telephone bill, a similar unpaid account with local cellular telephone companies and the rent of their Dar es Salaam house. Tanzania’s National Institute of Medical Research was said to have declined authorisation for human testing. A defiant Visser said from his Pretoria home on returning to South Africa that the deportation was part of a plot by global pharmaceutical companies afraid of the potential impact of Virodene. Tanzanian Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Bernard Mchomvu was quoted as saying that Tanzania’s National Institute for Medical Research never gave permission for the Test at Lugalo Barracks and also at a private clinic owned by the country’s Inspector-General of Police. The consignment was alleged to have been imported by the Chief of Defence Forces. The drug had caused a major political scandal in South Africa in 1997 when then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki had publicly denied that the African National Congress (ANC) had been funding the development of the drug.

GETTING RID OF AIDS?
‘Tanzania has in recent years experienced a lethal twist to the ancient traditions of consulting witchdoctors; clients, many of whom are desperate to get rid of Aids, are told to go to bed with a virgin. The Act, the witchdoctors claim, will rinse the deadly disease away’. So reported the COURIER ACP-EU (September -October 2001). The article went on ‘This advice now undermines the country’s attempts to stop the spread of HIV/Aids and ruins the lives of thousands of young girls….. Six-year old Bahati in Kilimanjaro Region was no longer a good student at school. She was falling asleep during classes and eventually she was taken to the doctor. He cried after he’d carried out the examination. She had been sexually molested. Her father is now in jail. He claimed that he believed that sex with a virgin would end the dreaded Aids which he may have got when visiting one of his many casual female acquaintances. The NGO ‘Envirocare’, with funding from the Danish government, has published a booklet and it is hoping to make a video about this story to show to other children who may be affected. Bahati (not her real name) has been tested several times for HIV but fortunately she is not infected. (Thank you Nasor Malik for sending this item -Editor).

‘BLACK GERMANS DO NOT EXIST’
In an article under this heading NEW AFRICA (May issue) published extracts from a new book by African-American Paulette Anderson revealing that Africans had been living in Berlin since the mid-1880’s and that some 2,000 were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Individual case studies referred to a Josef Mambo, born in Tanganyika in 1885 who became a Sergeant in a Prussian Infantry regiment, fought in World War 1 and later became a performer employed by the Deutsche Afrika Schou. Another Tanganyikan mentioned was M’toro bin M’wengi Bakari who was a Swahili language assistant at the College for Oriental Languages, FriedrichWilhelms University, Berlin from 1900 to 1903 and was the author of the book ‘Customs and Traditions of the Swahili’.

A TRAIN JOURNEY
‘On a train journey to Tabora which should have taken ten hours we limped into Tabora 24 hours later. The train had broken down, so I had to spend the night sitting outside a third class carriage, in the middle of the Tanzanian bush, chatting to about twenty Tanzanians on every subject – life in Ulaya (Europe), Christianity, mission, even the current performance of the Euro in the world monetary system! Tanzanians are so warm, welcoming and friendly. In fact I enjoyed chatting with people I had never met before so much that I think I’m quite glad the train was delayed’ – Peter Ferguson, a participant in the Crosslink’s ‘Smile Programme’ writing in CROSSLINKS (August). (Thank you Mary Punt for sending this item -Editor).

MISCELLANY

Posted on January 1, 2002 by editor

British High Commissioner Richard Clarke has announced that Britain will increase assistance to small and medium enterprises. This followed a one-day tour he made of such enterprises in Dar es Salaam. He noted also that Tanzania’s trade to EU member countries had reached a surplus for the first time ever last year and its exports to Britain had surpassed last year’ exports by 27%. -Guardian.

Some 130 students from Tanzania were stranded in Nairobi after they were promised admission to American colleges. It is said that one bishop of an unknown church collected Shs 130 million from them. He then took them to Nairobi and put them up at the YMCA hostel while “arrangements” were being made for visa and travel to the USA. (Nipashe)

Pharmacies have been told to stop selling Chloroquine drugs following the introduction of SP as the first line of treatment for malaria. SP includes drugs such as Fansidar, Falcidin, Laridox, Orad or and Metakelfin -Guardian.

The Ministry of Health has issued a statement saying that visitors to Tanzania are no longer required to provide certification for yellow fever. The government has scrapped all health desks at the country’s borders and airports. However in Zanzibar visitors may still be asked for the certificate.

Residents of Kwimba, Mwanza Region, were quoted in the Guardian as being optimistic that, as the use of biogas technology spreads, the widespread killing of old people suspected of witchcraft will come to an end. One old lady said that the ‘bad old days of red eyes’, caused by wood fires in her hut were now over.

The High Court has ordered the government to pay Shs 300 million in damages to the family of General Komba, a former Director of National Intelligence, who was shot dead by two policemen in 1996 Majira.

At a Koranic recitation competition, an initiative of the Tanzania Muslim Council (BAKWATA) and the World Muslim Congress, the Chief Director of the latter for East and Central Africa, Sheikh Muhamad Lukala, said that the ceremony was aimed at rewarding the best Koran readers and alerting Muslims to religious ethics. Young boys and girls from different Madarasa, Government and Islamic schools were required to learn by heart parts of all 114 chapters of the Holy Koran but, in fact, most only knew by heart between 5 and 15 chapters. Minister for Labour, Youth Development and Sports Professor Juma Kapuya said that due to their neglect of the Koranic code, many Muslims were committing wrongs in various parts of the world. Hatred, and acts of revenge were strictly prohibited in the Holy Book.

More than 50 tons of maize on the farm in Butiama belonging to the late Mwalimu Nyerere, is reported in Mwananchi to have remained unsold because of a glut of supplies. It had previously been sold to prison department and secondary schools.

At a Britain-Tanzania Society showing in London of a video (November 28) of the emotional scenes at the agreement signing ceremony in Zanzibar, one member of the audience suggested that the two party secretaries-general should be called in to help in Northern Ireland. Another added: “and Afghanistan!”

Makongo secondary school student George Mwasalwiba has won a $20,000 award from the International Society of Poetry in the USA and was invited to travel to Washington to receive his award. He wrote a poem entitled ‘Africa is Weeping’ about the AIDS epidemic. At the finals of the Commonwealth Vision awards in London on November 20 a short video from Tanzania by Maria Tschai entitled ‘Fruits’ was ‘Highly Commended’ She portrayed the diversity of the Commonwealth through images of fruits -watermelons, mangoes, apples and grapefruits.

Geoffrey Stokel has sent us a report from the Wantage Herald indicating that former British High Commissioner Sir Colin Imray has become the High Steward of Wallingford.

During the last three years eight black rhinos (one male) have been transferred from South Africa to a protection site at the Mkomazi Game Reserve for breeding -East African.

The East African’s Charles Onyango-Obbo (December 3) has been imagining an ideal East African state. Extracts: ‘I would choose the Dar es Salaam city managers to run the capital…I would pick Mkapa to lead the government …..I would come to Uganda for its policy on Aids…. Kenya for economic resilience without donor aid…. In the same issue the UN Centre for Human Settlements was reported as having compared crime in East and South Africa….. Dar es Salaam – fairly similar to Durban… Nairobi – very bad – and about the same as Johannesburg …..of those interviewed in Dar, 6% felt unsafe walking about during the day (61% in Nairobi) and 61% feared walking about at night (Nairobi 75%) ….

Tanzania’s Amelia Jacob, described as an indomitable campaigner for people living with HIV/Aids and herself HIV positive, has been awarded the 2001 Africa Prize for leadership by the US-based ‘Hunger Project’ Africa Today.

The well-known newspaper publisher Jenerali Ulimwengu who was declared not to be Tanzanian has been granted a Class A Residence Permit as a foreign investor -Guardian.

Vodacom has come to the rescue of the Football Association of Tanzania by agreeing to sponsor its Premier League in 2002 -Guardian.

OBITUARIES

Posted on January 1, 2002 by editor

Veteran politician BRIG. GENERAL MOSES NNAUYE (64) who was, until his retirement this year political adviser to President Mkapa, died in December. He had led an active life starting as a leader of port workers in 1958 during the struggle for independence and, according to the Guardian, was in the front line in the 1978 war against Uganda’s Idi Amin. He held many top positions in the CCM party and government and was also an artist, composer and sportsman.

Two well known settler-ranchers in Iringa in the 1950’s died within days of each other in October. They were DAVID RICARDO (85) who was described by some as later having ‘gone native’ and TONY MARKHAM, his partner on the farm who was a Veterinary Surgeon. David Ricardo was described in The Times on November 16 as soldier, rancher, aid worker and beachcomber who had started life as a young man of wealth and fashion who played tennis regularly with the Prince of Wales. He arrived in Tanganyika in 1943 and later became a Tanzanian citizen and active supporter of Julius Nyerere’s drive for independence; a tireless worker for African advancement through work on many development projects and finally, a much loved sage. He spoke fluent Hehe and Maasai, converted to Islam and eventually handed his estate back to the Hehe and moved to a spartan beach hut in Dar es Salaam. Tony Markham later became Principal of the Tengeru Agricultural Training Institute and subsequently worked for several years with the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN. He died in southern France.

PROFESSOR CUTHBERT OMARI of Dar es Salaam University’s Department of Sociology died on October 28 at the Hindu Mandal Hospital in Dar es Salaam.

IAN WOODROFFE, OBE, FRHSV (76) died on October 4 in Australia after what the ‘Melbourne Age’ described as ‘an outstanding and distinguished public service career’. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years. His fist job after university was as a District Officer in Tanzania. He served in many different areas of the country before and after independence. He became Acting Governor of the Seychelles at the age of 36 following the sudden death of the then Governor, Sir John Thorp.

REVIEWS

Posted on January 1, 2002 by editor

BUILDING THE RULE OF LAW. Jennifer A. Widner. W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 2001. 454 pages. $29.95.

Few judges become well-known, let alone popular, public personalities. But then, few judges have the opportunity and motivation to play a formative role beyond the court-room, by leading their nations through major constitutional changes over several decades. This book tells the important story of one who did: the subtitle, ‘Francis Nyalali and the road to judicial independence in Africa’, appears only on the paper cover -perhaps an afterthought, when the book was already printed -but aptly summarises the subject-matter. Nyalali, Chief Justice of Tanzania for 23 years, 1977-2000 (Julius Nyerere was President for the same length of time, 1962-85), was the longest-serving ‘CJ’ in the Commonwealth. (The average service for some other African Chief Justices is calculated as 3.6 years.) He could look back upon an exceptional career of public service in which he was instrumental in transforming the work of the judiciary and the life of the nation, including replacing the one-party state by a multi-party system.

This is not a biography. Key points in Nyalali’s life are briefly noted as background to his personal and professional achievements, which are examined in the context of problems facing ‘the rule of law’, the administration of justice and, especially, the independence of the judges in Tanzania and in other comparable African states. The tone is one of respectful appreciation. Nyalali’s personal story is remarkable. The Sukuma herd-boy who registered himself at primary school at the age of 11 progressed to Tabora School in the 1950s (the launch-pad for many future Tanzanian leaders, including judges) and was inspired by a visit by Nyerere, then founding TANU. After studying history at Makerere University College (no legal education in East Africa then), where he was elected President of the Students’ Guild, to Lincoln’s Inn, where he was ‘Called to the Bar’ in 1965.

The following year he was appointed Resident Magistrate in Musoma -a difficult district, not least as the President’s home area. Aware of local dissatisfaction with the judiciary, Nyalali sought remedies, ‘inspired by a personal interest in organisational problem solving’. He took justice to the people, taking his court on circuit, and won the trust of the community so that his proposed transfer to Kigoma was cancelled after local elders petitioned the President to block it.

Nyalali continued his innovatory approach in Tabora but regarded his next transfer, to teach on the training programme for primary court magistrates at Mzumbe, as a sign of disfavour; yet it gave him further opportunities for influential innovation and also, through teaching in Kiswahili, to develop his fluency in the Swahili legal vocabulary. He was soon moved again -to Bukoba, to deal with a growing backlog of cases by further innovations, including evening
courts.

From 1971 to 1974 at Nyerere’s request Nyalali was seconded from the judiciary to preside over the Permanent Labour Tribunal, in the troubled industrial situation of workers’ strikes following the adoption of the Mwongozo Guidelines. He gained experience in promoting settlements by negotiation and mediation, recognising the need for workers to be respected, including such practical steps as offering them tea in refurnished premises.

In 1974 Nyalali reached the senior judiciary, as High Court judge in Arusha. But all was not well with the judiciary (not only in Tanzania): its morale and legitimacy had declined, challenged in various ways by legislative and executive authority and provoking widespread public dissatisfaction with the courts. Indeed, Widner asserts that the rule of law had collapsed. The Judicial System Review Commission was set up, which reported in 1977.

Nyalali had decided to leave the bench to take up a new post in Geneva with the International Labour Organisation when he was mysteriously summoned by Nyerere and offered the choice of an alternative appointment: Chief Justice. It must have been a difficult decision for him. He was only 42, with relatively limited judicial experience, and was only eleventh in seniority in the High Court: would ten more experienced judges resent his leap-frogging? It was a difficult time for the judiciary and the collapse of the East African Community had removed the regional court of appeal, which had served Tanzania for decades. His wife and children were set on Geneva and the salary there would be incomparably higher. But Nyalali recalled his student days, when he aspired to serve his country. His choice was clear.

These and later landmarks of Nyalali’s life are dispersed through the book and frame its complex structure. Each episode provides a peg for an in-depth analysis of a relevant issue which concerned him. Most of these were issues of judicial policy, albeit with great significance for the wider public. Nyalali felt he had to build support, first within the judiciary and then with political leaders in the executive and legislature. He persuaded Nyerere to improve the judges’ terms of service but ‘it took him some time to learn his way around the one-party state’. His sense of history led him to restore to view the discarded portraits of colonial judges.

After coping with various challenges to judicial independence, the economic crisis of the early 1980s and the government’s severe response, including the (retrospective) Economic Sabotage Act, prompted Nyalali to speak with President Nyerere. Invitations followed to address first the Central Committee and then the whole National Executive Committee of the ruling party. These were crucial addresses to powerful, unsympathetic and even hostile audiences. His clear but uncompromising speeches, explaining the judicial role and pointing out illegalities in government policies, were turning-points in the relations between politicians and judges. The new Act was amended and the Economic Crimes Court brought within the High Court. Later Nyalali was to deliver many influential speeches and conference papers.

Widner summarises the debate which surrounded the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1984, in which Nyalali was prominent. Addressing the University Law Faculty, he gave a clear, though cautious and coded, call for a generous judicial application of the new rights. But his greatest challenge came in 1991 when President Mwinyi asked him to chair a commission on political change to a multiparty system. Nyalali knew that such a system would help to maintain judicial independence; but would he compromise that very independence by leading the review of such a highly-charged political issue? His acceptance, and his formative influence on ‘the Nyalali Report’, was decisive, although the public prominence it gave caused him embarrassment when, before the 1995 elections, he had to rebuff invitations to stand as a candidate for the presidency.

Into this personal story, Widner, an American political scientist, weaves comprehensive and perceptive discussions of many basic problems, apart from political interference, which have beset African judges: lack of training for judges, magistrates and court staff; lack of resources -not only weather-proof court-rooms and libraries but even paper; the colonial legacy of ‘deep legal pluralism’, requiring harmonisation of common law and statutes with customary and Islamic laws; the related need to promote gender equality; massive delays in both civil and criminal trials, and especially the inhumanity and costliness of lengthy imprisonment of many defendants awaiting trial while police, prosecutors and politicians resisted wider implementation of the right to bail; the development of ‘alternative dispute resolution’ by way of negotiation and mediation; the persistent problem of corruption, in societies which paid judges poorly and lowergrade magistrates a mere pittance; problems of witchcraft and vigilantism; the promotion of ‘legal literacy’ -public knowledge and understanding of the legal system (Nyalali invited religious leaders to participate in ‘Law Day’ ceremonies, opening the legal year).

Nyalali was particularly successful in two dimensions. Within Tanzania he developed internal support, previously weak, for the judiciary. But he also found and tapped foreign sources which have provided ground-breaking and sympathetic assistance: Ireland, which has provided judicial training courses, and the United States, in particular the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, which responded vigorously to his initial approach, from which valuable judicial exchange visits, other practical help and deep friendship have followed. Nyalali admired John Marshall, fourth Chief Justice of the USA., whose response to political pressures early in the nineteenth century established judicial independence and offered instructive parallels. American support helped Nyalali to realise a personal project -the Lushoto Institute for Judicial Administration, which he opened in 1996 to serve the courts ofthe region.

Widner’s book is a mine of information, based on extensive and varied research: many interviews with Nyalali and other judges and lawyers in several countries and study of his many speeches and papers (listed in a Bibliography though not all published); many other published sources, most of them relatively recent, are briefly and uncritically, even deferentially, cited; personal observations, for example at judicial conferences, and opinion surveys are also used.

The structure of this long book causes some repetition, with too much detail of some legal issues for general readers but insufficient specificity and precision for lawyers. Widner refers to ‘the region’ -‘eastern and southern Africa’ -but this is really a book about Tanzania. She gives several detailed references to Uganda and a few to Botswana and Kenya (including unnecessarily lengthy accounts of the celebrated Dow and Olieno cases) but only general references to other countries, with some misleading over-generalisations (e.g. that they have English ‘common law’, understating the role of Roman-Dutch law in the majority of them). There are occasional errors (Lord Woolf is not Lord Chancellor). Nyalali would be the first to acknowledge, more directly than Widner does, the support which he received from most of his fellow judges, many of whom have also served Tanzania with distinction and commitment. (Your reviewer admits his partiality, having had the privilege of sharing in teaching many of these dedicated judges in those far-off days of the yOlUlg Faculty of Law in Dar es Salaam.)

There is no account of the formation of the Court of Appeal, over which Nyalali presided, or of the Conference which he organised to review its work on its tenth anniversary in 1989 (the proceedings were published). There is no systematic examination of Nyalali’s main writings -the many judgments which he delivered in the course of his long judicial service; only a few of his best-known judgments are considered at relevant points.
JimRead

BWANA SHAMBA (MR AGRICULTURE). Peter M Wilson. The Pentland Press (see below), 2001. 235 pages. ISBN 1 85821 9078

This reviewer spent 4 years in the mid-1960s doing cotton research at Ilonga in the Kilosa District of Tanzania. Bwana Shamba recounts the personal experiences of Peter Wilson during his thirteen years in Tanganyika/Tanzania from 1958 to 1971 and more than two thirds of the book are devoted to his first assignment in Kilosa where he worked for three years for the Eastern Province Cotton Committee. The book is therefore of particular interest to this reviewer given the links to cotton and to the agriculture of the Kilosa District as a whole. The remainder of the book relates Peter’s experiences at Tengeru near Arusha where he taught agriculture and Swahili for about six years and in Dar es Salaam where he worked for four years in the Ministry of Agriculture. In the town of Kilosa at that time there was no electricity, many roads in the District were frequently impassable but the railway to Tabora passed through the town and there were several well stocked shops. The expatriate population in the town was sufficient to run the usual sort of Gymkhana Club and this, along with the Church, was one of the more important social centres. Peter’s description of family life at that time and of attending functions at the Club during the heat of the tropical night, wearing evening dress, seem today somewhat archaic!

But most of the book is devoted to accounts of the work of a Field Officer in attempting to develop district agriculture and there are vivid descriptions of how this was done. Communications were difficult and one of the first jobs Peter had to accomplish was to build a ‘murram’ road through the bush for some 25 miles to open up an area for cotton growing and thereby enable the cotton to be transported out to Kilosa town. Other descriptions relate to using the local train service to reach villages otherwise inaccessible by road and the welcome he received from the local people who rarely, if ever, saw outsiders. After independence Peter was based at Tengeru where he lectured to students of agriculture and then took on the task of teaching Swahili over several years to groups of expatriate volunteers. Many of these volunteers then worked in remote parts of the country where a knowledge of Swahili was essential. Peter’s accounts of organising the Swahili courses give an interesting insight into the life of expatriates after independence in contrast to the lifestyle he had previously followed in Kilosa.

Anyone who knows Tanzania, and particularly those with experience in agricultural development, will find many of the chapters and reminiscences in this book very interesting and those readers who were in Tanganyika before 1961 may well know many of the people and places mentioned in Kilosa.
Jim Watson
(It is understood that the Pentland Press of Bishop Auckland, which used to claim a special interest in books concerning Africa, has gone into receivership. This means that anyone who has ordered any book from them will receive neither the book nor money back. Those wishing to obtain this book should apply to Peter Wilson, P 0 Box 304 Horley RH6 7NE. The price is £15.00 plus £5,00 p&p -Editor).

PINK STRIPES AND OBEDIENT SERVANTS: AN AGRICULTURALIST IN TANGANYIKA. John Ainley. The Ridings Publishing Company Ltd.

John Ainley was appointed as an Agricultural Field Officer in the Department of Agriculture in 1949 at the age of 23. He was recruited through the Crown Agents. John’s time in Tanganyika/Tanzania included three years in Iringa and Njombe in the then Southern Highlands Province, two tours in Handeni in Tanga Province, ending with his promotion to Agricultural Officer (Tanganyika) whilst on leave. A tour in Bukoba in West Lake Province followed, during which he was promoted to Provincial Agricultural Officer and finally posted to Head Office in Dar es Salaam, where he witnessed the transition of the country to independence. This tour was followed by leave in England and a final tour of duty in Bukoba.

This book recounts in some detail the author’s various experiences and duties during his sixteen years of service.To quote a few examples: his description of walking safaris through the Livingstone Mountains and across the Elton Plateau, the resettlement of Mau Mau detainees in the Handeni District, the part played by the District Team in locating the wreck of a Central African Airways machine which came down in remote bush country, his becoming a ‘script writer’ for the Tanganyika Broadcasting Services’ programme for farmers based on the idea of ‘The Archers’ and acting as Presiding Officer in the first ever elections held in the country.

Throughout he displays a most remarkable ability to recall names and dates and one suspects that he must have been a committed diarist! The author has included some personal details of life on a station, home leaves and his marriage in 1955. One is able to appreciate the part played by his wife, often under extremely adverse conditions. The variety of tasks undertaken and included in the job description ‘general extension work’ is truly remarkable and even more so in the case of a man who progressed from Field Officer to Provinvcial Agricultural Officer in the course of his service. It is worth recording that during his time in Head Office his duties included editorship of ‘Uklima wa Kisasa’.

The variety of tasks undertaken and included in the job description ‘general extension work’ is truly remarkable and even more so in the case of a man who progressed from Field Officer to Provinvcial Agricultural Officer in the course of his service. It is worth recording that during his time in Head Office his duties included editorship of ‘Uklima wa Kisasa’, a monthly agricultural newspaper for the more progressive farmers, this adding the skill of journalism to his many talents.

This book contains no ‘message’. It is written in a straight forward style and is merely an account of a life, or a good part of one, of service. The total commitment of the author, ably assisted by his wife, to the task in hand and to the people he is working amongst, is obvious. Such an attitude seems to be quite contrary to the populist view of today that ‘colonialism’ was completely wrong and totally exploitive.

The Epilogue describes the Joint Commemoration and Thanksgiving service for Her Majesty’s Overseas Colonial Service and the Corona Club held in Westminster Abbey on May 25 1999 at which the author was one of eight ex-Overseas Service Officers presented to Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
CA (Tony) Waldron

ECOLOGY, CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE INFORMAL ECONOMY IN NORTH WEST TANZANIA. C.D.Smith. Ashgate. 2000. 222pp. £43.95

This book will be of interest to students of Development Studies and to staff and supporters of N.G.O.’s working in Tanzania. It may well also be of interest to B.T.S. members not intimidated by the sociological language of the early chapters.

It challenges two widely held views: first the commonly expressed pessimism about the present and future prospects of the mass of the Tanzanian people; and secondly the idea that successful development must necessarily involve agriculture based on large estates for export crops and/or industrial projects, both requiring heavy capital investment.

After some early fairly theoretical chapters, it examines the physical and human environment of the Kagera Region, the effects of AIDS, the impact of Rwandan refugees, the place of bananas in the life of the people and the role of coffee production in the local economy. Detailed findings are based on the study of some 250 households in Kagera. Particular attention is paid to the differences between rich and poor farmers and to the situation of women heads of households (who comprised 30% of the sample ).

The author suggests that, so far from being merely a subsistence economy, it is to a considerable extent cash-based and much less dependent on coffee than is generally supposed. He contends that the people have shown remarkable innovative skill in confronting their economic problems and that official figures, since they ignore the informal economy and illegal trade, greatly underestimate this. Readers may find it interesting to compare his work with that of Aili M. Tripp (1997) which examined the informal economy in Dar es Salaam in a not dissimilar fashion.

Smith believes that the best short and medium term policy for development—in Kagera at least—would be the injection of capital to assist the poorer farmers who are held back only by the lack of relatively small amounts of investment capital. It is a pity the book did not receive better proof-reading and editing. There are typographical and grammatical errors and the punctuation is, to put it mildly, idiosyncratic.. Nevertheless, this reader found it both challenging and thought provoking
Trevor Jagger

EXPLORE KILIMANJARO. Jaquetta Megarry. Rucksack Readers, 2001 ISBN 1 898481 105 £l2.50, 64pp maps photos. E-mail: info@rucsacs.com Web: www.rucsacs.com

Nearly 20 years ago in the mid’80’s a friend and I, equipped with little more than two 2 pieces of advice proffered by the elderly German owner of the Marangu Hotel, our base, set off to scale the mountain. “Take it slow and steady” she counselled and “Should you reach Gilman’s Point then little extra effort is involved in getting to the summit. Heeding her words, I at least made it to Uhuru Peak. My companion went no further than the rim and has since very much regretted it!

Today for those intending to climb the highest mountain in Africa, there is an alternative and rather more detailed source of reference. This handy, spiral bound, tightly packed guide provides a ‘step by step’ practical approach to doing Kili. It takes the would be trekker through the planning and preparation stages necessary before stepping a foot on the mountain, offering such advice as when best to go, what to take in the way of clothing and equipment, altitude sickness etc. By means of maps and illustrations, it then directs the reader along the two most popular (Marangu and the more arduous Machame) routes. Other sections are devoted to the habitats/zones and wildlife to be found along the way, and some background history and local culture. A useful addition to the pack, particularly for those intending to attempt the mountain for the first time, and even myself who is half tempted by the Machame route second time round!
Pm Watts-Russell

A LIVELIHOOD PERSPECTIVE ON NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN SEMI-ARID TANZANIA. T Birch-Thomsen et al Economic Geography. 77 (l)January 2001. 23 pages.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

ENGENDERED ENCOUNTERS: MEN OF THE CHURCH AND THE “CHURCH OF WOMEN” IN MASAILAND, TANZANIA 1950-1993 Dorothy L. Hodgson. Comparative Studies in Society and History VoI41.4. Oct. 1999 (pp 758 to 781)

This is a fascinating account of the consequences of the encounter between Christian missionaries and the Masai. It begins by pointing out that in many parts of Africa there tends to be a preponderance of female converts despite concerted efforts by most mainstream missionary groups to convert men, and this indeed is what has happened in Masailand.

The Congregation of the Holy Ghost, also known as the ‘Spiritans’, has spent forty years attempting to evangelise Masai men with virtually no success. The article describes the three strategies employed, first the setting up of schools, second the providing of instruction in the Masai homesteads, and finally the setting up of ‘individual’ instruction classes. Masai women were restricted from attending school, tolerated but not encouraged to attend homestead instruction and dissuaded from holding formal leadership positions in the church. The Christian churches tend to manifest a patriarchal culture with a preference for men as priests and leaders and the Roman Catholic church still does not accept women priests. Yet in spite of all this, significantly more women than men have sought instruction and baptism in the Catholic church.

There is a clear account of the political and economic changes which took place up to the 1950s as a result of various colonial interventions and which affected the gender relations between the Masai, with a marked reduction in the role of women, in these fields. However, despite this the women retained their involvement in the religious domains of everyday life. While men prayed to their one God, Eng’ai, (whose prefix shows her to be female) on special occasions, women prayed throughout the day most importantly at the early morning and evening milking when they would sprinkle a little milk on the ground thanking and entreating Eng’ai for the continued protection, preservation, and expansion oftheir family and herds.

The school strategy largely failed because conversion was seen as a threat to Masai maleness. You could not be a Christian and a Masai at the same time. Conversion meant that the progression from uncircumcised youth to morran to elder could not be maintained and those who did convert were despised as ormeek and essentially excluded from the clan.

The homestead strategy failed with the men precisely because the main thrust was towards the conversion of the men, particularly the elders of the group who were those consulted initially and who had to agree to the missionaries working in the homestead. The aim was to try to convert the whole homestead at once so that it would form a unified Christian community. However, the elders were those who were least receptive and they often simply did not appear at the scheduled meetings so that the missionaries became frustrated because they were not reaching them. In contrast, because these meetings were conducted in KiMasai, and involved discussion about key religious concepts, the women found themselves with direct access to the missionaries so that they could hear the Christian message and became regular and active participants in the sessions to the point of actually speaking out in public.

The ‘individual’ strategy became possible with the government’s villagisation policy and here the gender differences became vividly apparent. Now that anyone was free to attend religious instruction regardless of school enrolment or homestead residence, women flocked to the classes and women outnumbered men by two to one at baptism. Some missionaries still refuse to teach Just women’ claiming it would divide the family, others disparage the ‘church of women’ and insist on the need for a church to be a proper community with proper (male) leadership.

Many Masai women feel that conversion to Christianity enhances their already substantial spiritual life by providing yet another place to sing to and praise God, and they perceive little difference between the Masai god Eng’ai and the Christian God or between the prayers and rituals of Masai religion and of Catholicism. The church provides frequent opportunities for the women to meet as a group, talk to one another in small circulating groups both before and after services or classes and to sing and pray together.

Thus it is that through both direct and indirect means the women have overcome the disinterest of missionaries and the resistance of men to their participation in the church and there is evidence that that is a source of joy to them.
Peter Hill

PROMPTING DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS FROM ABROAD: INTERNATIONAL DONORS AND MULTIP ARTYISM IN TANZANIA. Jessica I Vener. Democratization, vol. 7, no. 4, Winter 2000, pp 133-162,

The author uses Tanzania as a case study to assess the extent to which international donors tied commitment to the democratization process as a condition for aid. Noting that using aid as a reward for promoting democratic modes of governance is essentially a post -cold war policy, and that by 1992 all of Tanzania’s major donors had “incorporated democratization as a contingency for continued economic assistance”, the author asks whether foreign donors explicitly required this as a condition for aid. Tracking aid statistics for the years 1985-1995, the author concludes that while there were numerous increases or decreases in funding, interviews with donor representatives indicated that these fluctuations were a result of circumstances, e.g., specific Tanzanian needs, or donor fatigue, rather than any demands for democratic contingency. However, local sentiment suggested otherwise. Using interviews as a means of assessing perspectives among Tanzanian government leaders, opponents of the one party system, and various leaders within the civil society, the author found they expressed a strong sense of external pressures for some measure of democratization. Nevertheless, these leaders also acknowledged that changing domestic circumstances had minimized the efficacy of the one-party system and stimulated the move to multi-partyism. Since Tanzania did not test whether economic sanctions would be applied if it did not liberalize its political process, the causal role of donor pressures on future democratization remains to be seen.
MarionDoro

ZANZIBAR TOURISM DIRECTORY 2002. Swahili Coast Publications. 48 pages in full colour with information on Zanzibar and contact details on tourism companies.

LETTERS

Posted on January 1, 2002 by editor

I have read ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ number 70 from cover to cover and I am afraid I find it slightly depressing. I believe it is generally recognised that the only news is bad news, but there must be plenty of good stories if only people would send them in. One tends to have our fill of politicians; what about the ordinary people, the people my wife wrote about in her books ‘A Patch of Africa’ and ‘Heart of Africa’? Surely they still exist and are getting on with their lives in their cheerful ways and doing interesting and useful things. I have just finished reading ‘Tales from the Dark Continent’ by Charles Allen (1980). That too I have found depressing, dominated by the memoirs of administrative officers and virtually nothing of the work done by the professional officers and their staff. I had met a few of the administrative officers mentioned. But the ones I most admired were not included, though they were very senior when I knew them in Tanganyika. There seems to be no mention these days of Tabora; once the most important town after Dar es Salaam, the Provincial Headquarters of Western Province, with its railway workshops and the Mint, and the centre of the very gifted and talented Wanyamwezi people. What has happened there?
Dr Francis G Smith, Nedlands, Australia.

I have received a letter from Ella Models Ltd. offering to provide ‘experienced models, new faces, extras and dancers’. I always wondered when someone would give a different interpretation to the title of this publication! -Editor.

TA ISSUE 70

Posted on September 1, 2001 by editor

TA 70 cover

THE NEW VICE-PRESIDENT
THE ECONOMY – PRAISE ALL ROUND
SUGAR AND SHIPPING CONTROVERSY
TANZANIA AND THE W.T.O.
TONY BLAIR’S GREAT DILEMMA
BOMBING TRIAL VERDICTS

THE NEW VICE-PRESIDENT

Posted on September 1, 2001 by editor

Dr Ali Mohamed Shein

Following the sudden death on of Vice-president Dr Omar Ali Juma (see Obituaries) president Mkapa appointed on July 12 Dr Ali Mohamed Shein (53) to take his place. According to the Guardian, President Mkapa’s nomination came as a surprise to most Tanzanians including journalists who had predicted that former OAU Secretary General, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, and Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and former High Commissioner irl London Dr Abdulkadir Shareef would be the front runners. The Guardian article went on: ‘However, all those who had made predictions were correct on two things. First, that no woman politician stood a chance of taking the vice-presidency and second, whoever was to be appointed would come from Pemba.

Though Dr Shein is relatively unknown in Tanzanian politics, he has a long curriculum vitae with a strong academic background. He was born in Chokocho village, Pemba, in 1948 and attended Lumumba College in Zanzibar before proceeding to Voronezh State University in the Soviet Union where he obtained his A Level Certificate in 1970. He got his first degree at the Odessa State University in the Soviet Union in 1975 and later his Msc Degree in Medical Biochemistry and his Ph.D in Clinical Biochemistry and Metabolic Medicine from Newcastle University in Britain.

His political career goes back to 1968 when he was the Publicity Secretary of the Afro-Shirazi Youth wing at Lumumba College and General Secretary of the youth wing for all secondary schools in Zanzibar. Before his appointment as Minister in the Zanzibar President’s office, he was Minister for Health in the government lcd by Dr Salmin Amour. Reacting to the nomination of Dr Shein, many MP’s from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) hailed President Mkapa for injecting young blood into the government But opposition MPs expressed fears that because Or Shein is young he might find it difficult to ‘manage the old guards’ in the CCM government.

The National Chainnan of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) Prof Ibrahim Lipumba said that Dr Shein was an unknown personality in politics. “I have heard of him for the fIrst time today,” he said. Prof Lipumba claimed that Dr Shein was not accepted even by Pemba residents. He was the representative of Mkanyageni in Pemba, a constituency whose general election results last year were controversial. But the leadership ofthe opposition CHADEMA party praised President Mkapa for his wise choice.

MAINLAND POLITICS

Posted on September 1, 2001 by editor

The political situation in mainland Tanzania has been relatively calm during recent months but as the Swahili paper Rai indicated in June there is likely to be a big fight within the ruling CCM party next year when a new party leaders will be elected and when these leaders begin to jockey for the position of presidential candidate at the end of President Mkapa’s second five-year term in office in 2005.

Five leaders of the formerly influential opposition NCCRMageuzi party have defected to CCM in recent months of whom one, Dr Masumbuko Lamwai is now a nominated CCM MP (Special seats). The late President Nyerere’s eldest son, Andrew Burito was reported in Majira as having joined CUF ‘because of its economic policies’. Another son, Makongoro defected last year from the NCCR party to CCM and Mwalimu’s daughter, Rose Nyerere, is a nominated MP and a member of the CCM National Executive Committee.

The newly appointed Registrar Political Parties, John Tendwa has been making an impression by calling on the 12 opposition parties to unite saying that a strong opposition would not only strengthen democracy but also ease his burden. He made the statement in a visit to the main opposition CUF headquarters the first visit it of its kind to any of the opposition parties. He said that, although some political parties had qualified for deregistration, he wouldn’t deregister them. “Politics needs some tolerance” he said.

THE SUGAR CRISIS
The relatively calm political atmosphere was disturbed however as this issue of Tanzanian Affairs went to press when some CCM MP’s began to exert pressure on their own Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Iddi Simba, because of what one described as the illegal issuing of sugar licenses. Details are given under ‘The Economy’ below. Michael Okema, writing in The East African on August 6 tried to explain the political implications of this controversy even though he said that what he was writing ‘might seem far-fetched’. Extracts: ‘Given Tanzania’s weak opposition parties any opposition (to the government) worth its name has been occurring within the CCM. Residues of past differences within the party come out in parliamentary debates. It (the sugar crisis) began with a complaint from Chrisant Mzindakaya CCM MP for Kwela accusing Mr Simba of misleading MP’s about sugar import permits. He submitted a private motion in Parliament seeking the formation of a Select Committee to investigate the matter. “Most of these companies did not deserve these licenses and this has created loopholes for corruption,” said Mzindakaya.

The motion to set up a committee to probe into what was described as ‘the sugar scam’ was supported by MPs of both sides of the House. At the end of July the Minister of State in the President’s Office responsible for good government, Mr Wilson Masilingi, said that the government would have no mercy on any person proved to have received or offered a bribe in connection with the importation of sugar. ‘

Okema went on: ‘This is the same Mzindakaya who in March 1997 raised hell over a tax waiver on cooking oil granted to businessmen – an affair which ended with the resignation of Finance Minister Prof. Simon Mbilinyi …. During 1995 there had been a heated debate over who should succeed the then President Mwinyi. Local papers at the time alleged that Mzindakaya had backed former Prime Minister John Malecela for the position, thus drawing the wrath of Mwalimu Nyerere. When Benjamin Mkapa became the CCM presidential candidate, the people who came to centre stage were not those who had enjoyed the political limelight under President Mwinyi. There was therefore some bitterness, especially as the ‘old guard’ were alleged to have been corrupt. A former Minister of Works Mr Nalaila Kiula is currently facing charges of corruption allegedly committed when he served under President Mwinyi (see below). It was important for the old guard to clear their name. So they have been trying to show that there is as much corruption under Mkapa as there was under Mwinyi.’

Writer Okema’s final words in the article were: ‘They are negatively proving their innocence. Mzindakaya’s dogged pursuit of Mkapa’s Minister over the years is not for nothing’. Reacting to Mzindakaya’s private motion, Attorney General Andrew Chenge said the government accepted the claims made by Mzindakaya in his motion. It also supported the need to investigate the matter but because the issue centred on the ministry’s failure to execute its duties, the motion should be amended to allow the government to carry out the investigation rather than a Select Committee. CCM MP’s accepted Chenge’s suggestion. However, opposition CHADEMA party MP Dr Wilbrod Slaa alleged that, by letting the government carry out the investigation, it would deny Parliament its advisory role. “The saga has been going on since April but the government has been silent. Why should it want to investigate now?” he questioned. He suggested that the minister and his deputy ought to do Parliament justice by resigning.

In his reaction to the motion, Minister Simba said “I am honest. I have not cheated this Parliament and I am not corrupt. The government can go ahead and investigate.” The sugar saga was only one of many conflicts that were bound to happen as the government moved from monopoly trade which did not allow free competition to open market business.

RE-ALLOCATION OF SUBSIDIES
Following the expulsion of 15 CUF MP’s from the National Assembly (TA No 69) the Government has cut the party’s monthly subvention from Shs 21.8 million to Shs 15.5 million the balance being divided amongst the other parties. The new allocations are as follows (Number of votes obtained in the 2000 elections in brackets):
CCM Shs 175 million (4,645,326)
NCCR Shs 489,000 (256,691)
TLP Shs 13.3m (657,965),
CHADEMA Shs1.9 million (298,536),
UDP Shs 1.4 million (315,427).
CUF got 892,075 votes.
Other parties with no seats: 11,731 votes,
TPP 10,206,
TADEA 9,652,
UMD 7,550,
UPDP 4,665)
NUJ 2,507,
NRA 70 -The Guardian.

EALA ELECTION RESULTS
The National Assembly has elected nine legislators – six men and three women (three from Zanzibar and six from the mainland) for the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) eight from CCM and Mabere Marando from the opposition NCCR-Mageuzi. He defeated three aspirants from other opposition parties and got 206 largely CCM votes out of 261 total, defeating Bob Makani of CHADEMA who obtained 65 votes, Dr. F Masha of the United Democratic party who got 19 and Peter Mziray of the Tanzania Labour Party who got 15. Cheers and ululations from CCM MP’s greeted Marando’s victory – The Guardian.

THE ECONOMY

Posted on September 1, 2001 by editor

EXCHANGE RATES: £1 = TShs 1,250 $1 = TShs 890

‘HIGHER IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT’
According to the UN’s Human Development Report 2001 Tanzania has climbed from l56th position in terms of people’s life expectancy, income per person, educational enrolment and adult literacy to 140th out of 165 countries. Norway is the first. The Head of the Development Unit at UNDP Tanzania, Ernest Salla, said that, with poverty reduction at the heart of the government’s programme and the formation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and establishment of a national poverty monitoring system, the future for Tanzania was bright.

‘MARGINALISED IN TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT’
According to the Technological Achievement Index (TAI), contained for the first time in the Human Development Report, Tanzania is also among nine countries classified as ‘marginalised’ in terms of technological innovation and achievement. They have been listed as the lowest in rank out of a total of 72 countries in the world in terms of creating and using technology. The HDR stresses that in this network age: “Any country that fails to make effective use of technology is likely to find itself falling behind in human development and marginalised in the global economy.

‘AMONG FASTEST GROWING ECONOMIES’
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Group has praised Tanzania’s 5.8% growth rate and described it as among the fastest growing economies not only in East Africa but in the whole of Africa. Uganda’s rate is 5% and Kenya’s 0.3%.

‘TOP IN FOREIGN INVESTMENT’
Tanzania has been placed at the top of Sub-Saharan African countries in attracting direct foreign investment for eight years, according to the report. Net foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.3 per cent in 1992 to 2.1 per cent in 1998, compared with an average increase of 0.1 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa. Tanzania was described as one of the most improved countries in the region.

THE ‘GOLD STANDARD’
Outgoing UNDP Representative in Dar es Salaam, Sally FeganWyles, told the Daily News on July 19 that Tanzania had become a ‘standard bearer for excellence’ in economic recovery, poverty reduction and the war against corruption after years of tough economic and political reforms. It was ‘the gold standard’.

THE BUDGET -‘VISIONARY AND BOLD’
This is how David Tarimo described, in the Guardian, Finance Minister Basil Mramba’s first budget since taking up his post. The writer referred to what he described as the clearly articulated vision that poverty reduction could only be realised by significant growth and that this growth was dependent on nurturing competitive industrial and agricultural sectors The boldness and ambition was seen in the increased revenue collection target of 12.1% of GDP compared with 11.7% for 2001 together with the significant reductions in import duties and certain other taxes. Changes made to ensure that agriculture would be competitive included the abolition of stamp duty on proceeds from sales of agricultural produce and the reduction of land rent on agricultural land by 66%. The five per cent cap on local tax (producer and livestock cess) announced two years ago was to be enforced. Changes to promote the local dairy sector included the banning of imported powdered milk and the imposition of suspended duty of 25% on other types of imported milk -except for infant milk. The VAT on milk packaging materials had also been abolished.

A major step towards reducing industry’s production costs was the abolition of customs duty on capital goods and raw materials. Business was also said to have welcomed the abolition of the two per cent withholding tax on payments for goods and services; investors would welcome the abolition of withholding tax on interest on foreign loans. In raising revenue the Minister introduced a gaming tax and planned to raise significant revenue through abolishing the exemption from VAT that the government and its institutions previously enjoyed.

In the media the headlines concentrated on the Shs 30,000 million allocation for an increase in salaries of civil servants. OTHER HGHLIGHTS included an increase in airport charges; a fuel levy on petrol; increases in duty on beer, cigarettes and soft drinks; a halving of excise duty on locally-produced wine; new taxes on lotteries and casinos; VAT on computers, printers and accessories to be abolished; hospital equipment and taxes for drugs used to treat TB HIV / Aids and malaria abolished; VAT on education investment and ground transport for tourists abolished; Shs 8 billion provided for next year’s census.

The Minster said that expenditure would total Shs 1,764 billion and revenue Shs 991 billion leaving a gap of Shs 773 billion to be filled by external assistance and debt relief, the drawing down of reserves, the sale of shares in previously privatised public firms and by increases in taxation. But Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Dr Juma Ngassongwa, a CCM MP, said that the fact that the economy was showing signs of recovery remained a mystery to the majority of Tanzanians who continued to suffer in poverty. He said that with a birth rate standing at 2.8 per cent the 4.2 per cent economic growth figure was brought down to a mere 1.4 per cent. Although agriculture was still the mainstay of the economy, government seriousness in insuring growth in the sector was not reflected in the development programme 2001 -2 nor in the national budget. Only 5.5 per cent of the budget had been allocated to the agricultural sector.

As ‘The Express’ put it ‘The agricultural sector, whose dismal performance (3.4% growth rate) last year largely contributed to the failure of the economy to reach the targeted growth rate of 5.1%, is still besieged by the same (seemingly intractable) problems which cannot be solved in a very short span of twelve months. These problems include: lack of investment in agriculture -the sector accounts for 50% of GDP but of all the projects sanctioned by the Tanzania Investment Centre, only 5% concerned agriculture; primitive farm-implements, such as the traditional hand-hoe which perpetually condemns the peasant farmers to subsistence farming; flawed marketing policies accompanied by mismanagement and corruption in the cooperative unions, and imperfections inherent in the marketing boards which inhibit efforts to increase production; low processing capacity of agro-based industries; and, lack of linkage between agriculture and industry. It does not appeal to an inquiring mind that, with a budgetary allocation of only 5.5% per cent to agriculture (compared with, for instance, 18% to Defence and Security, and 21% to administration), the government is really seriously committed to ‘revolutionizing’ agriculture, no matter how impressive the said ‘strategy’ may be on paper.

TANZANIA WINS IN ELECTRICITY DISPUTE
Tanzania has won in the three-year-long long dispute over the cost of the $150 million 100 MW Malaysian-financed Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) thermal plant project at Tegeta in Dar es Salaam. Production of electricity should finally start in October, the Minister for Energy and Minerals, Mr Edgar Maokola-Majogo has announced. The London-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruling issued on July 12 stated that the value of the plant would be reduced to $125 million, not $150 million as claimed and the cost of electricity would be $2.8m per month as proposed by TANESCO as against IPTL’s $4.2m demand. Maokola-Majogo also announced that the construction of the long-delayed 232-kilometre $300 million gas pipeline from Songo Songo to Dar es Salaam, would start in September and would be completed in 2003. He said the implementation of the gas project would go hand in hand with providing towns and villages along the gas pipe with power from gas and solar power at a cost of $13.3 million. The gas from Songo Songo would be used to generate power at TANESCO’s Ubungo gas turbines in Dar es Salaam and later at the IPTL plant.

SUGAR CRISIS
A crisis in the sugar industry erupted in May this year when local producers threatened to suspend production, blaming the government for issuing 22 licenses to import 100,000 tonnes of ‘industrial’ sugar and thus spoil their market. The Guardian reported that the crisis deepened in June when a consignment of more than 6,500 tonnes of sugar was confiscated by the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) after it was found to have been imported illegally. Early reports had it that the ‘game’ was being practised by some prominent businessmen, who used the name of the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) to avert paying import tax. On reaching the local market, the alleged businessmen sold the sugar at throwaway prices, thus, undercutting the price of locally produced sugar. In April, Minster for Industries, Iddi Simba, had been reported in The East African as having revoked 10 import licenses for 38,000 tonnes saying that the permits had been issued without his authority. Tanzania’s annual sugar requirement was said to be 290,000 tonnes and local sugar production about 180,000 tonnes so that importation, legally or clandestinely was necessary. Local sugar was highly taxed but imports could sell at much lower prices thus giving higher profit margins. Local producers argued that some of the permit holders imported refined sugar but declared it as raw sugar to cheat on taxes.

AND QUESTIONS ABOUT SHIPPING
The dynamic Minister Simba was in further trouble when it was reported on August 8 that the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance and Planning had criticised Mr Simba’s handling of the privatisation (perhaps better expressed as ‘liberalisation’) of the Shipping Corporation (NASACO). He was said to have ignored a Cabinet Paper by issuing some 30 licenses for clearing and forwarding operations to foreign shipping companies. The Minister was quoted as saying that the question of corruption did not arise. “I am not in politics to make money” he said. “In fact I do not live on my ministerial salary”.

NEW RISK AGENCY
Tanzania has become one of the first seven countries to show interest in a new political risk insurance agency for Africa -the African Trade Insurance Agency (ITA) which is being supported by COMESA and the World Bank. The agency said that there were significant gaps in the political risk insurance market when it comes to the assumption of risk in cross-border transactions. Premium rates were likely to range from 0.4% to a maximum of 2.5% depending on the length and type of credit involved. Risks eligible would include embargoes, expropriation, inability to convert or transfer currency, imposition of import or export taxes of a discriminatory nature, war and civil disobedience -Press Release.

ZANZIBAR -STALEMATE BUT TALKS CONTINUE

Posted on September 1, 2001 by editor

SECRET NEGOTIATIONS
There has been some optimism in Zanzibar during recent weeks as the Secretaries General of both the ruling CCM (Philip Mang’ula) and opposition CUF (Seif Hamad) have conducted lengthy negotiations to try and resolve their many differences (TA No. 69). The negotiations were said to be taking place in secret in a Dar es Salaam Hotel. But, as this issue of TA went to press, no agreement had been signed and both parties were divided on how many concessions they could make in the interests of peace.

According to The Express the secret negotiations revolved around a number of controversial issues raised by CUF in the wake of the October elections in which CCM emerged the winner and CUF refused to accept the results and accused CCM of fraud. The main issues were believed to be CUF’ s demand for fresh elections, an independent Electoral Commission and a Commission of Inquiry to probe the tragic killings of 26th and 27th January (TA No. 69). But, according to The Express, going by the oft-repeated pronouncements of some top leaders in both camps, neither party was going to soften its stance on the issue of elections. As far as CCM was concerned the 2000 elections were now history, and therefore the presidency of Aman Abeid Karume was a non-negotiable matter. On the other hand, CUF’s uncompromising position was that they could not go for anything short of a repeat of the whole election exercise throughout Zanzibar. They had adamantly refused to recognize Karume as President; the rest of the opposition parties had thrown their weight behind CUF. Some political commentators thought that, as in the case of the problems which erupted in the wake of the 1995 elections, this issue would be resolved by time.

CUF National Chairman, Professor Ibrahim Lipumba, told his members in Zanzibar, and later, journalists in Dar es Salaam, that his party was dissatisfied with the pace of the CCM -CUF talks. He gave July 31 as a deadline for CUF’s continued participation, but, after a peaceful CUF rally in Pemba on July 22, this was later extended to the end of August. He said CUF had come to question CCM’s sincerity and suspected that the latter was taking part in the negotiations merely in order to impress the donor community.

The Zanzibar President had earlier warned the donor community against ‘interfering’ in the internal affairs of Zanzibar and accused them of colluding with CUF to enforce a re-run of the elections. “But” according to Mtanzania “we’re not going to give in,” he said. When President Karume was in London in May some Zanzibari’s organised a demonstration against him. He was reported in Mtanzania as having said that he was too busy to meet them.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has called for support for Juma Duni Haji and another CUF leader in Zanzibar who have been charged with murdering a policeman in Pemba during the disturbances in January. The prosecution said that the trial should take place in Pemba. The Attorney-General was reported to have told the court that the accused had no case to answer but the police said that they had the evidence. The defence said that the prosecution was delaying matters so as to continue keeping the accused in jail.

Swedish Ambassador Sten Ryland was quoted as saying that his country would give swift financial support to Zanzibar’s health and education sectors, as well as funds for rehabilitation of Zanzibar’s rich historical buildings, as soon as CCM and CUF struck a deal.

CALL FOR PATIENCE
As this issue of TA goes to press CUF leaders Lipumba and Hamad have been asking their members to be patient so as to give more time for the negotiations. Hard-liners were reported to be very dissatisfied by the lack of progress in the talks. Many had been highly critical of the delay in concluding the talks and with signs that the CUF leadership might be prepared to compromise. The CCM side was also said to be divided on how far to go to appease CUF.

On July 19 the police said that they had seized anti-aircraft and demolition firearms on the island of Tumbatu.