Tanzania: Dr Cooksey speaks on eradication of poverty

Dr Cooksey above photo, Gold mining in Geita the second photo

Published on: Thursday, September 1st, 2011

 at shout-africa.com

By Elias Mhegera – PROPER management of resources and eradication of corruption could remove Tanzania from abject poverty very fast. This was a key statement from Dr Brian Cooksey of the Tanzania Development Research Group (TADREG).

He was presenting his paper titled Governance and Rent Seeking in Tanzania: Beyond the Corruption Agenda? At British Council in a breakfast debate that was organized by the Policy Forum.

Dr Cooksey a sociologist and seasoned researcher said that there is a big need for Tanzanians to change their attitudes in the way they handle serious matters. He asserted that the energy crisis going on has been exaggerated by corrupt motives of some few individuals who did not think big on the side effects of this problem.

“We do have vivid examples whereby state and private actors collude to distort policies, laws, and regulations in order to favour particular individuals, companies and groups,” he said.

He reminded of the case like External Payment Arrears (EPA) account and the Richmond energy scandals whereby some senior politicians and their friends in the private sector had colluded in order to squander public property. He added by saying that rents in Tanzania are political derived resource transfers being in the form of money, credit or property.

He said rent seeking in this country involves both private and public sector actors. These and many others are problems that Tanzanians need to solve if they want to move forward.

He revealed that private sector tends to manipulate the public sector and this is rent seeking in extreme case whereby individuals or groups of civil servants tends to be involved in such contracts for individual or group interests and not that of the public in general.

It was due to such ill practices that bribes are accompanied in many processes like provision of land title, residence permits and even licenses which he termed as extortion

He highlighted that resources like land, minerals, and water that are in abundance could serve the day if managed well, but strange enough it is the fact that a lot of minerals disappear through bogus contracts while land grabbing is on the increase.

He challenged another area as being allowances whereby many boards have good pay for members per session; he warned that these funds could have been directed towards the neediest areas.

Dr Cooksey said that rulers use patronage spending to keep their supporters on side. “Clear examples of this trend are MP’s salaries, military expenditures and procurement just to cite a few,” he emphasized.

He concluded by saying that commercial-cum-service entities do not deliver properly because of corruption warning that, “if you are corrupt do it politely,” causing big laughter in the conference room.

On his part John Dominic who is the Government Technical Advisor, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism said that democratization process in Tanzania should start by land distribution.

He elaborated that although 60-70 percent of Tanzania’s land is village land but only five percent of peasants who constitute almost 80 percent of the country’s population own land. This means that even the village land is not in the hands of the main producers, hence low production.

The discussant at the debate Hamza Johari who is a lawyer and executive secretary at the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority Consultative Council admitted that there are still many discrepancies in management of resources but was quick to add that the Government has already enacted sufficient policies and laws to mitigate the same.

He counseled that revenues should go back to the support of environmental protection a practice that is not conducted properly in Tanzania.

END