Tanzania: Let us be middle income country now

FATHER of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, promised the British that he would in ten years of independence develop Tanganyika at double the level they were able to do in over 40 years of their colonial rule.

He further promised to bring them back to witness for themselves the economic strides that the country would have made. True to a stateman’s word, in 1971, the government invited a number of former colonial officers and sent them around the country to see for themselves the level of development that the people had realised.

One of them, Donald Burton, the last District Commissioner for Ukerewe, notes in his book, “An Affair with Africa” that the menu in Government Rest Houses was still very much the same as they had left it.


However, he goes on, there were signs the shops were less stocked, implying life had started to get harder. Incidentally, 1971 is the year I was at Minaki High School, one of the many Church-owned schools that Mwalimu, a devout Catholic, nationalized in order to give the children of independent Tanganyika equal opportunity to education.

According to statistics, there were only 900 of us countrywide, but a tremendous achievement for a nation that had only two graduates at independence, including Mwalimu himself.

Yet, the bill must have been huge for the government. Minaki was more than 1,000 kilometres from my native Ukerewe. However, all expenses, including tuition, boarding and transport three times a year to and from my village, were paid for by the state.

In addition, medical services were free for citizens and I believe, non-citizens too because nationality was never a condition for getting treatment in government hospitals. Observers like Mr Burton failed to appreciate the fact that in its first 10 years freedom, Tanganyika also went through a number of serious political and economic challenges.

First, there was the military mutiny of 1964, which could have completely altered the history of our country, the aid and diplomatic row with the then West Germany over Zanzibar’s ties with the then communist East Germany and, the breakup of the East African Currency Board, which called for the realignment of priorities.

West Germany had offered to fund to a large extent, the country’s first Five Year Development Plan but on condition that Zanzibar should kick out the East Germans, which Mwalimu rejected.

The Germans then withdrew their aid and we were told, carted back home even the wheelbarrows they had brought in for a number of development projects. The West Germans were the first to commit to a rural electrification project, which evaporated with their aid.

Part of the reason for the current power woes lies in that initial aid let down but one that was premised on the country’s unshakeable resolve not to compromise its independence much as it was an “infant” nation on the global arena.

The alternative of course was enslavement. Germany was Tanganyika’s first colonial power before the country became a United Nations Trust Territory mandated to the British. There were also many other challenges including a 1968 El Nino phenomenon that damaged roads, railways and swept away bridges, and the East African balance of payments crisis of 1971, which actually snowballed to the events that led to the breakup of the former East African Community (EAC) in 1977.

But overall, Mwalimu delivered on the promise he gave 10 years earlier. I know of no other former British colony that did the same. I listened with keen interested the Prime Minister’s address in his motion to adjourn the last session of Parliament on August 26.

I was especially attracted by the government’s desire to turn Tanzania into a middle income country by 2025, a status among our neighbours already enjoyed by resource constrained Mauritius.

If anything, Mauritius has used countries like Tanzania to enrich herself and better the living standard of her people. With no single gold mine, Mauritius is within the region a net exporter of processed gold items such as rings, bracelets and other jewelry. It is quite obvious that the gold comes from the African mainland.

It is processed in Mauritius and sold in India where the demand for the precious yellow metal is like a bottomless pit.

According to the Prime Minister, the biggest problem he saw inhibiting Tanzania from becoming a middle income country was that the people were not creative enough.

Tanzanians are very creative but there is no enabling environment to fund ideas and risk financing. It could be interesting to note that of the 13 large tax payers the PM cited, six were commercial banks.

Banks can only create money where clients are quite robust. The problem with financial services in Tanzania is that many of them do not actually help with the creation of jobs and employment.

They prefer the “safer” products of consumer loans, which although good for macro indicators, do not actually lead to wealth creation as they are merely spending sprees with the profits so realized finally repatriated to the metropolitan producers of industrial goods and services while borrowers are left to grapple with huge interest rates.

The mega tax payers’ list also included two cement companies. But where are steel mills and the manufacturers of iron roofing sheets? It is obvious there that there is missing link as cement alone cannot result into houses.

Anyway, Tanzania should have been a middle income country many years ago, in the days of Mwalimu actually. So we must now run while others walk. In my view, 2025, is too far a date. The master of money and macro-economic theories, John Keynes never liked the phrase “in the long run” because “we shall all be dead by then.” Former World Bank President, Robert McNamara once told the Japanese it would take them 50 years to industrialise.

The Japanese had a different strategy and became an industrialized nation within 15 years only. Over and above resources, capital accumulation is a culture and skill mastered only by a few people in the world.

The government can accelerate the entry of Tanzania into middle income country category if it assigns responsibilities to the likes of our existing Azams, IPP Media Group and Kagera Sugar Factory for each to turn out just five other entrepreneurs of similar capacity and the multiplier effect would be momentous.