Kikwete commits to more open governance

September 22, 2011
Elias Mhegera
SET to commit their Governments for more transparency
Tanzania and Kenya are to increase openness to their citizens by joining over 40 other countries in an initiative to have more open government.

This commitment was assured to the citizens, by signing on to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), at a high level event on Tuesday this week.

President Barack Obama of the United States and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil were the hosts during the launch of the ‘OGP’ in New York, both Presidents Kikwete and Kibaki were in New York at the time of the launch for the UN General Assembly.

The OGP is a new international initiative aimed at securing concrete commitments from Governments, in partnership with civil society, to promote transparency, increase civic participation, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

But this development did not pass without pessimisms from politicians and activists in Tanzania. Commenting on the efficacy of this new initiative an assistant researcher at the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Onesmo Olengurumwa said it was too early to give his comments because he has not done studies on how this will work.

But he was quick to add that there are many such initiatives in Africa like the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), but the main problem has always been on how they are implemented in one individual country.

Probably to support this stance is the fact that combating of corruption is one of the areas where this country has never done well. In June 2010 – Tanzania ranked 102nd out of 179 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2008.

OGP is overseen by a steering committee co-chaired by the United States and Brazil, and which includes 15 other founding governments and civil society organizations, including Twaweza – an East Africa wide citizen agency and public accountability initiative, and the Kenya based Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog).

Twaweza's head Rakesh Rajani and Africog's executive director Gladwell Otieno attended the launch.

"This is a powerful opportunity for governments to be more transparent and responsive to citizens," noted Rajani, "and in the process build trust, strengthen legitimacy and involve citizens in solving persistent development problems".

At the OGP launch, the founding governments – Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States endorsed an Open Government Declaration and announced concrete national action plans.

But in quite a contrary stance the National Convention for Construction and Reform (NCCR), secretary general Sam Ruhuza says the main problem is on how African governments are prepared to work transparently with other stakeholders in governance.

He gave an example of how the parliamentary committees reports are ignored in Tanzania and how the Central Governemnt want to retain a strong monopoly in certain process he gave an example of how the formulation of a new constitution in Tanzania has brought serious debates simply because the Governemnt wanted to have an upper hand than other stakeholders.

He warned that until when ruling parties in Africa recognizes the importance of other stakeholders in the governance there will be a continuation of signing of treaties after treaties without any fundamental changes.

The founding governments welcomed the commitment of a large number of governments, including Tanzania and Kenya, to join OGP and to deliver their action plans in March 2013 in Brazil.

Uganda had sent a high level delegation to the pre-launch meeting in July, but has apparently declined to join the partnership. The other African governments to join OGP this September are South Africa, Liberia and Ghana.

The Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA), director of communications and publicity Erasto Tumbo, said he welcomed this development but admitted that there was a need to study first the working of this new development before commenting anything.

He commented while busy in the on going by-election campaigns in Igunga, Tabora. The former legislator said that new initiatives always comes coated with sugar but essentially there is nothing viable that people can expect from the OGP.