WOMEN IN THE MEDIA: THE TANZANIAN SITUATION

Presentation by Elias Mhegera at the GEMSA occasion July 2011

General Observation

i.                    The situation is improving gradually for instance in our news room we have gone back to the ratio of at 60 males to 40 female journalists. This is after female journalists who were employed had to be laid off on grounds of incompetence and poor delivery

ii.                  However our media house has retained very few journalists to the extent that even the number of males is also very few with four journalists as full time employees and three as correspondents. So we do have seven journalists in total while we do have four female journalists one in the news room and three correspondents. The other female journalists that we used to have in our news room have gone for further studies.

iii.                There is a general feeling that female journalists or those with a formal training in communication prefers to go for public relations or as communication officers in some private companies like telecommunication companies and a few in Government parastatals like banks and in some ministries.

iv.               Currently there is an attempt by public relations executives to hire the services of public relations who can write properly which means this will have to force those who were escaping print media to go there in order to get some experiences before they go to the careers of public relations and communications.

v.                 There is a general feeling that journalism as a field is for the tough guys who are prepared to face the tough challenges in the field.

Reasons for this trend

i.                    unfriendly working environment: for instance poor remunerations, lack of transpirations and insurance schemes which discourages female journalists

ii.                 Print media has a lot of challenges including scarcity of computers and some of media houses pays very lowly for the stories that are submitted by journalists generally including their male journalists

Suggested solutions

i.                   To enhance services to journalists in general in order to encourage retention of media personnel in general

ii.                 To provide motivations to the media staff through long term courses at mid career and tertiary institutions.

iii.              Provision of attachment schemes to journalists in general

iv.               Media houses owners and their CEOs to be involved in finding a long lasting solution to these problems. 

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



Government must act on David Jairo

Minister for Energy and Minerals William Ngeleja (L), David Jairo (C),and Deputy Minister Adam Malima (R)

Opinion: Speaker’s corner

The Government must act now on Ministry of Energy and Minerals scam. The Express July 21, 2011

By Elias Mhegera

THE political situation in Tanzania is not calm, there are commotions and underground movements which could lead into a total anarchy and something must be done sooner than later.

There are many issues which need immediate action but no one seem to be in-charge of affairs, the most recent incident being of the corruption scandal involving David Jairo the permanent secretary Ministry of Energy and Minerals and probably the entire top team at the ministry.

There are many other issues which have been reported in the media but the Government has not yet acted up to now. For instance Dar es Salaam being the centre of every activity has no permanent regional commissioner, while even the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance goes without some key commissioners.

Now we also do expect to get a new chairperson for the Electoral Commission which has become the centre of accusations from many circles. These are just few examples to elucidate the extreme of the problem.

The message here is Tanzanians need the Governemnt to act, and in a way that will depict that leaders do act whenever they assume duties that they have demanded from their voters.

The Premier Mizengo Pinda has said that there is nothing that he can do due to the fact that permanent secretaries are appointees of the president, but the Vice President Dr Gharib Bilal is around whom then should take the blame for not taking immediate action whenever the law or regulation requires so.

 Without proper supervision of the institutions that are supposed to guide the performance of the Government there is a possibility of empowering irresponsible people. It is also clear that people in remote areas will become victims than those who are well placed closer to the resources like Dar es Salaam residents.

To solve this power vacuum there is a need to enact a strong institution at the State House that will assist the president in his governing duties. The presidency as it is in other countries is a group of people who are well versed in all fields of life.

These are the one to act like a barometer of what is happening in the country, they are the ones to foresee and predict the possible outcomes of any activity, they are the ones who could grasp affairs well before they explode in the limelight.

It is not proper to act in a laissez faire style when people are suffering since this is one of the components which can cause the erosion of the people’s trust to their Government.

At present probably the Government should grapple with the power crisis first before it establish any project that has nothing to do with the much cried for energy.

Mailto: mhegeraelias@yahoo.com, Tel 0754826272