Sunday, January 28, 2007

Time the govt reviewed rare professionals’ salaries

Time the govt reviewed rare professionals’ salaries

Tanzania has lately been facing numerous problems, from power rationing to water problems and from lack of trained manpower to inadequate food. Yet, statistics show that the country could solve a number of the foregoing problems if only it paid its professionals handsomely. ATTILIO TAGALILE argues on the need for the present government to review salaries of rare professionals so that they can remain at home and help in the country’s reconstruction.

On Monday when President Jakaya Kikwete addressed the nation from the State House, he said the fact that a number of southern African countries were employing professionals from Tanzania showed that our education system was not as bad as it was made to look like.

The president was responding to a question from one of the senior editors who had wanted to know what the Government was doing to stem the brain drain of Tanzanian professionals. What forced the president to dwell on the quality, if you like, of Tanzanian professionals was the editor’s argument that our education system was no longer what it used to be.

That it had to a great extent been marred by what came to be known as Universal Primary School Education, laconically referred to as UPE which was introduced in 1973.

The Editor’s argument, which holds water, was that in an attempt to ensure that as many children as possible get primary school education, the first phase Government of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere educated as many teachers as possible without regard to the academic quality of such teachers.

The senior editor therefore expressed concern what the last and the present governments were doing, to ensure that as many pupils as possible get to secondary schools could, at the end of the day, lead to another UPE!

President Kikwete was however, quick to allay the fears of the senior journalist by saying that while his government continued with the objective of ensuring that as many pupils as possible get into secondary schools, it was simultaneously ensuring that it got highly qualified teachers.

“That is why we have decided that whoever wants to take a degree in education, the government would sponsor him or her,” the president said.

He went on to note that his government had actually called on even private universities to start training teachers for primary and secondary schools and that the government would be ready to sponsor such trainee teachers.

“It is actually in realisation of this,” the president said that, “we have decided to convert Chang’ombe Teachers College and Mkwawa High School into constituent colleges of the University of Dar es Salaam,” he said.

The two institutions are specifically tasked to train secondary and college teachers. The president argued that the faculty of education at the University of Dar es Salaam trains not more than 500 secondary school teachers per annum.

He said the number was not enough to fill teaching posts in secondary schools that were being built literally every day. “But we cannot at the same time tell our people to stop building secondary schools because we don’t have teachers…that would be wrong. We would be demoralising them,” he said.

He then set out to show why he thought our education standard was improving, hence the need not to discourage Tanzanians from building more and more secondary schools.

He said according to available statistics, in the year 2000, 22 per cent of pupils passed standard seven examination.

Other annual performances with their passing percentages in brackets are as follows. In the year 2001 (28.6 per cent), 2002 (27 per cent), 2003 (40 per cent), 2004 (48 per cent) and 2005 (61.8 per cent). He said next year over 400,000 pupils would demand places in form one secondary schools in the country.

The president however, stressed that, that countries like Botswana and others in southern Africa continued to employ our doctors and engineers showed clearly that our education was not as bad as we think it is.

One thing the President however, admitted was that there was a need to improve our education so that the country can benefit from its educated human resource.

The president’s comment on the need to improve education in the country may not have come at a more appropriate time.

Indeed, countries like Brazil, South Korea, Singapore, India, China and Malaysia which are lately referred to as the emergent nations would not have reached where they are without laying accent on quality education.

Any nation that gives education of its people lip service is bound to fail in its endeavour to improve its socio-economic development. As noted by the president, the fact that Tanzanian professionals are highly sought after in southern African countries may serve as an indicator that our education is not as bad as we think.

Yet, there is also a need for Tanzanians, especially policy makers to start asking themselves serious questions why such highly trained professionals are leaving the country.

For instance, there are reports that all district medical officers in Namibia come fromTanzania. It is important therefore to find out what sent them to Namibia in the first place, leaving the country that had given them both academic and professional training in the medical field.

The same thing could be said about other professionals like pilots, flight engineers and other aircraft technicians and other professionals. It is an open secret that over 40 Tanzanian pilots are working for foreign airlines not only in southern African countries but also abroad.

For instance, the Royal Dutch Airlines, KLM, is presently known to have employed Tanzanian flight engineers, the same engineers who were trained and serviced Air Tanzania Corporation, ATC.

That Tanzania has been able to export so many experts is certainly good news and augurs well for the reputation of this country. But then does it really make sense in fields like say, medicine where Tanzania has failed to meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) benchmark of one doctor for between 8,000 and 10,000 people to pride itself in exporting its doctors?

As we pride ourselves in exporting highly trained professionals abroad, our neighbours Kenya and Uganda have met the WHO’s benchmark.

For example, statistics show that in Kenya, there is presently one doctor for every 8,000 people. The same thing could be more or less said about Uganda. The East African country has one doctor for every 10,000 people.

However, the situation in Tanzania is pathetic. According to last year’s statistics the country had 800 doctors. Yet, records show that the country has trained more than that number but the problem is that some of them are working in neighbouring countries!

The point is, there is every likelihood that both Kenya and Uganda have been able to meet the WHO benchmark through the assistance of Tanzania which has been training medical doctors for other countries!

Right now, the country has been looking for ways of privatising the Tanzania Railways Corporation, TRC, on the ground that it cannot run it efficiently and profitably.

Yet, this is one of the institutions that has had all sort of engineers, from mechanical to electrical, engineers who could put back the Canadian built railway engines if only they would be provided with funds to purchase the requisite spare parts.

The same thing is found in the Tanzania Electric Supply Company, Tanesco. The company has all sorts of electrical engineers and technicians who have been maintaining highly sophisticated plants such as Kidatu and one of the most sophisticated hydro electric power plants, Kihansi, which is operated and run by Tanzanians.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

Having said that, what should be done? Are we contented with the present situation in which the country has been turned into exporter of professionals who are very much needed at home?
The relevance of this question lies in the fact that there are a number of regions in the country which do not have even regional surgeons!

Yet, there are a number of Tanzanian surgeons working just across the border! At one time Uganda recruited a tax expert from Tanzania who had been discarded by his own nation to go to Kampala and help in working out a new, workable tax regime.

When the Tanzanian completed his contract, putting that country into one of the best tax collectors in the continent, earning in the process, kudos from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, we woke up from our deep slumber.

There are presently a number of our leaders travelling abroad for medical check which could easily be done within the country if the Government had provided our doctors with not only state of the art equipment but requisite motivation by giving them humane emoluments.

We have not done that and instead are losing, in droves, our highly trained experts in various fields. One cardiologist arrived in the country a few years ago having performed numerous heart operations abroad.

He tried to establish a heart institute in the country where Tanzanians with defective or heart problems could be operated on. Your guess is as good as mine. He faced so many difficulties that he had to go an extra mile to establish the institute.

Those involved in providing such a man with licence did not have a care in the world despite the man showing his state of the art equipment. A friend of mine in the newsroom the other day narrated a case of his own youg brother, a medical doctor, Jackson Maile.

The young man was stationed in Lindi, south eastern Tanzania. Given the poor working conditions and in particular, emoluments, he left for United States where he was finally accorded US citizen.

As you read this piece, Dr Maile has established a hospital and Americans queue to his hospital for treatment!

The present fourth phase government is presently involved in trying to revive the economy, and in particular, in providing jobs as per its pledge of one million. It may not be a bad idea if it started by improving emoluments of doctors and engineers so that they may return home and save millions of lives.

It is important for the government to realise that living expenses in the country have gone up quite considerably. However, there are certain professionals the nation could retain them in the country by giving them reasonable emoluments.

For instance, doctors travel to seek jobs in countries like Botswana for two to three thousands US dollars. The same doctors would remain in the country if they were given a net salary of half of the amount. What is the real situation at present? It is pathetic to say the least. Our doctors are the lowest paid in East Africa.

No wonder last year we had not less than three strikes that saw the last government doing what can at best be described as unthinkable! They sacked most of the doctors on the ground that they had violated medical ethics.

Fine, it was wrong for the doctors to play music in the course of their strike, but that was the third strike and the doctors, pharmacists and nurses were desperate. Even when the strikers apologised to the then government, the government of the day remained adamant, sticking to the ethic thing!

The other day, a private television station carried a talk show programme that showed that despite having a number of foreign mining companies, our locally trained (at university level) geologists are jobless.

Foreign mining companies would rather employ foreign geologists rather than locally trained geologists. It is these conducts on the part of some of our investors that should awaken the government that there is something wrong somewhere.

Yes, why should such mining companies be wary of highly trained local mining engineers?
Certainly they have something to hide. It is therefore important for the government to work out an emolument structure that would keep certain professionals such as medical doctors, engineers and others at home rather than abroad.

Highly developed countries like United States, Germany, France and others actually lure highly trained foreigners with money.

There have been cases where they have gone to the extent of giving such foreigners nationality.

Instead of looking for foreign experts, it is time the government lured our own highly trained professionals from neighbouring countries to return and help develop their own country.

No one is going to develop this country, except sons and daughters of this country.

The government ought to realize that when highly trained professionals like medical doctors, engineers, join politics instead of practising their profession, that goes to show that there is something awfully wrong in our salary structures.

Ends.

Thai rainmakers

Let’s be careful before Thai rainmakers do their thing

Recently the nation was informed of Government plans to bring in rain making experts from Thailand who could help to create rain over Mtera Dam in Iringa/Dodoma.

The good news was given by none other than the Prime Minister, Edward Lowassa, during his working tour in two countries, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to the Government’s statement, if the project succeeds, it would help to fill in Mtera Dam and in the process enable the Tanzania Electric Supply Company, TANESCO, to make use of the water from the dam in generating power through the Kidatu Power Plant in Mogorogo region.

We have used the words ‘if the project succeeds’ because it is not already given that the Thai rain makers would straight away go to the area and do their thing.

They will firstly try to find out whether it is, in the first place, feasible to carry out such a project.

And this is because conditions that have helped them create rain in their country may be different from those pertaining in and around Mtera Dam.

It looks like our Government is really trying hard to try to find out solutions to our problems.

The reason why it is presently obsessed with rain makers and Mtera Dam is that failure in the two past rain seasons’ to fill the Mtera Dam to its capacity has led to the present nightmare of power rationing.

As we have had occasion to point out a few days ago, the present power rationing is so serious that we have never had the like of it since independence over forty years ago.

Yet, much as we would like the Thai rain makers to come and help us, we would like to caution our Government against such projects.

Our fears have more to do with our environment than anything else.

Yes, how sure are we that this rain making process is not going to have adverse effect on our environment?

We all know that one of the main reasons behind Mtera Dam’s failure to get its fill of water was due to our own human degradation at sources of the Great Ruaha which has lately ceased its greatness.

If that is the case, why do we want to embark on a project that could end up causing more problems to our environment than our earlier own degradation of the Great Ruaha?

We would like to call on the Government not to embark on a project which could in helping us to solve what may be a temporary problem land us into a permanent problem.

If the Thai have such a technology, the United States which has had fires in their forests in California and other parts of that country could long have sought for such assistance from Thai rain makers in order to put out such fires!

Let us not forget what happened in Lake Victoria when some scientists introduced Nile Perch only to wipe out Tilapia.

It is our hope that before the Thai rain makers do their magic, we would have satisfied ourselves, scientifically, that their technology is not going to land us into another problem.

Ends.

The golden days of Bert Shankland

The golden days of Bert Shankland and Joginder Singh in the East African Safari

THE East African Safari Rally which died with the collapse of the East African Community, EAC, was one of the sporting events that brought East Africans together. But after the collapse of the Community, it was not surprising that the motor rally also disappeared into oblivion. Staff Writer, ATTILIO TAGALILE looks back with nostalgia at the event that kept East Africans on their toes as it lasted. Read on.


AFTER the collapse of the EAC on June 30th in 19977, a number of things were affected, including the East African Safari Rally which was normally organized in April and usually ended on Easter Monday with the competition starting and ending in Nairobi.

The beauty of that competition was that after being flagged off from the rump in Nairobi, usually by Kenya’s President, initially by the founding Father of that country, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and later, Daniel Arap Moi, participants would head for Uganda in the first leg of the rally.

The second leg would take them back to Kenya and later drive into Tanzania through Tanga and move on to one of the most difficult patches in the rally, the Usambara Mountains.

The rally which drew local and international drivers from East Africa and other parts of the world was one of the most exciting sporting events in the region.

After the collapse of the Community, the rally was confined to Kenya although Tanzanian drivers continued to participate in the rally for between two and three years.

However, the removal of the Tanzanian section from the rally robbed motor rally fans of the fun they had enjoyed for years as the rally existed.

Although the rally has since resumed, it is not what it used to be because it no longer provides that particular kind of test to both the drivers and their cars.

As the East African rally existed, one of the leading mottos then was that it provided what came to be known as the test of man and his or her machine.

As for Tanzania, the highlight of the East African rally as it existed, was the two victories scored by a pair of Tanzanian drivers (who were however, British citizens), Bert Shankland and Chris Rothwell.

Shankland was then the chief executive officer and sales representatives of Marshall Peugeot in Tanzania and his office and motor showroom was then located in the same building where the City Bank is presently located in the city centre.

Shankland who drove Peugeot 404 won the rally back to back in 1965 and 1966, hence putting Tanzania and the car model in regional and international map.

Even before he won the rally, the Tanganyika and later Tanzanian motor car market had been dominated by Peugeots.

After his double victory, the cars’ sales shot up and for any upcoming Tanzanian or East African for that matter to consider himself a modern man to own a top of the range car in those days he was supposed to drive a Peugeot.

The cars were believed to be the fastest in the realm of motor cars after the two Britons won the regional rally two years in succession.

Later came the second version, faster and more robust, Peugeot 504, and Shankland turned to the new car but the best he did in the rally was to finish second and third.

This time his navigator was not Rothwell who had returned to England, but Chris Bates. However, the participation of Shankland and Bates continued to bring a lot of excitement and thrill in the regional rally.

Other regional drivers who won the rally during different years included Kenya’s flying Singh, Joginder whose favourite car was Volvo, made in Sweden, Vic Preston senior who drove a British made car, Ford Cortina and later the new kid on the block, Shekhar Mehta, who would win the rally through a Japanese car, Datsun 1600 SSS.

Mehta could actually be described as a man who introduced Japanese cars into East African market through his victories in Japanese made cars.

For it was his victories coupled with the introduction of another Japanese car make, Toyota 160Y which finally killed the European car market in East Africa.

From then on, Japanese cars started not only to dominate the East African rally, but more and more affluent people in the region preferred Japanese cars to European cars.

There were apparently a number of reasons for that. These included the fact that they were cheaper and their fuel consumption was lower than European cars, especially those which used petrol.

The other factor was the easy availability of spare parts which were cheaper than those of European made cars.

And like Joginder Singh, Shankland and Mehta, Preston also won at least once in the regional motor rally before he retired to leave his son, Preston junior to take over.

What was however, interesting about the regional rally is that international foreign drivers, for a long time, failed to win the rally despite their vast experience on the international motor rally circuit.

For instance international drivers who had won motor rallies in Europe like the Polish driver, Zasada, brought in Porsche (which was then being made in West Germany) in the rally.

Since October 3rd 1990, the Porsche is made in the united Federal Republic of Germany and presently beats Italian made car, Ferrari in speed although its price is almost a quarter that charged on Ferrari!

In the first few two to three hundred kilometers, the Polish driver sent a chilling cold into the spines of East African drivers.

However, by the time he had reached Uganda and was now returning to Nairobi, he was forced to pull out of the rally after a fuel tank was pierced through by a sharp object.

But before the mishap, he had given Shankland, Joginder and the rest of the top East African drivers a run for their money.

Zasada’s speed in his Porsche was such that Joginder Singh had this to say about the Polish driver: “It is difficult to beat Zasada on a straight road”.

Joginger would later tell sports journalists that he was far ahead and driving over 130 kilometres per hour.

He then saw the Polish driver in the sight mirror. Before he knew what was happening, Zasada went past him as if he had stopped driving!

That was certainly German engineering at its best. The latest Porsche is not only a speedster monster but can not roll on a flat road on account of application of prompt brakes.

The other famous Tanzanian driver, apart from Shankland, Rothwell and Bates, was Zully Rhemtullah who was then living in Mwanza.

Rhemtullah’s favourite car was Peugeot 404 and for those who may not know this man, it is actually the same old man who is presently involved in cricket development in the country.

That goes to show that for Rhemtullah, sports runs in his blood. Although, as noted, he was unable to win the East African Safari Rally, he has turned round and done an extremely good and quite a commendable job in developing cricket in the country. I pay tribute and gallantly salute this old man!

Why was EA Safari Rally exciting?

As already pointed out, as the rally was being run throughout the three East African countries, it provided extremely difficult driving conditions to drivers, especially international drivers from Europe who were not used to driving in the rugged East African terrain.

For instance, each of the East African country had its own challenges. Kenya normally provided rugged, stony roads and when the rains were late, the route provided a lot of dust to the drivers.

The main disadvantage of the dust was that it provided visionary problems to the drivers. And the best way to avoid dust was to keep in front of the pack.

Ugandan roads were slippery, especially during rainy season while the Tanzanian roads, especially the Usambara Mountains section, was very muddy and most drivers’ dream to win the rally ended at Usambara Mountains.

There was not a single rally held that never experienced heavy rains and muddy conditions in Usambara Mountains.

It was actually because of such tough conditions that experienced East African motor rally drivers came up with the following saying:

“The East African Safari Rally is won or lost in Usambara Mountains”. While most drivers feared the section, Shankland loved it!

He drove his Peugeots in mud as if the car were a four wheel drive. Today, few Tanzanians have the ability to drive such cars in such muddy conditions, hence the present love for the four wheel drives.

Shankland was so good when it came to driving in the section that he collected most of his points in the rally once he entered the Usambara Mountains section.

Even when he won the rally back to back in 1965 and 1966, he had done quite well in Kenya and Uganda, keeping his car in the first ten leading cars.

However, when it came to Usambara Mountains, he moved to the first position and by the time he drove to Dar es Salaam and back to Nairobi he had already won the rally.

The same thing happened, more or less, when he finished second and third respectively, this time in the new, bigger Peugeot 504.

The East African roads conditions were such that they provided motor rally drivers with a major test in human endurance and machine.

It was therefore not surprising that when the East African Rally was finally killed, through the withdrawal of the Usambara Mountains, the rally lost its glamour and excitement.

Indeed, how could it continue to provide excitement when drivers and their vehicles had only Kenyan and Ugandan road conditions?

After the collapse of the East African Rally, (in the sense of the withdrawal of the Tanzanian route by those responsible for the event) Tanzania continued with its rally which came to be known as the 1,000 Kilometres Tanzania Motor Rally.

It was also quite exciting, because it included the treacherous Usambara Mountains. However, the rally later died when the Tanzanian government banned, for a few years, following a fuel crunch.

It however, later lifted the ban and Tanzania motor rallies are not only back, but have actually been growing from strength to strength.

However, for some of us who had the opportunity of bearing witness to the East African Safari Rally, the competition would never be the same again for a variety of reasons.

One, the treacherous Usambara Mountains section is no longer what it used to be!

This is because there have been such environmental degradation, in terms of indiscriminate felling of trees in the area that the rains are no longer as heavy as they used to be.

The implication of this is that the muddy conditions in the section which used to give motor rally drivers a run for their money are no longer there on account of lack of rains and this has taken away the fun.

Secondly, most of the so called local rallies which are presently being organised, separately, in the region are not worthy the name for the simple reason that most of them are not using new cars specially made for the competition, but second hand cars.

During the days of the East African Rally, all competitors used new, specially made cars for the rally because their manufacturers had one thing in mind, to test the man’s endurance and the ability or otherwise of the cars in such tough road conditions.

It was therefore on the basis of the performance of the cars in such tough road conditions that enabled motor vehicle manufacturers whose make of cars had participated in the rally to make further modifications in their cars.

And the aim of such modifications and improvement on the cars was to ensure that at the end of the day they produced cars that would stand tough road conditions and by extension, sell more cars to their customers the world over.

In short, the East African Rally was both a sport and an arena for motor cars production engineers from manufacturers to find out which parts of their cars could be improved.

Therefore the car which won most of the rallies was considered a better car in the sense that it had completed over 3,000 kilometres without breaking down.

It was through the rally that production engineers were able to find out which part of the car broke down more often than not, hence the need to improve its production.

As for the man in the street who would line up along the road and follow the race through his transistor radio, the East African Rally provided him with fun and excitement.

Motor rally enthusiasts in the rural areas would spend sleepless nights waiting for the cars to pass in their respective localities.

What was more, unlike these days when some people are known to put impediments on the roads in order to stop drivers and rob them of their valuables, during those days motor fans would help in extricating a motor rally car that had got stuck in mud.

And for the East African governments, the motor rally provided them with revenue through the participation of local and international drivers.

Let it not be forgotten that it was during this time when, during winter in Europe, that tourists from Europe and other parts of the world trooped into East Africa not only to visit the region’s rich tourist destinations which are second to none in the world, but also to watch the East African Rally.

After the collapse of the Community and the East African Safari Rally, there had been attempts to revive the latter but to no avail.

Tanzania on its part has continued to organize its own motor rallies some of which have seen the participation of drivers from neighbouring countries.

However, like Kenya, the local motor rallies have failed to bring the excitement and fun that used to be experienced during the good, old days.

Had the Community continued to exist, it is unlikely the regional motor rally would have died.

In fact these are some of the things that some people tend to forget when they talk of the old and the so called new Community.

The new Community would not succeed because it is based on a wrong premise, business and for a selected few and foreign companies whose tentacles are based in the region, rather than business for local people, especially for the man in the street.

Although the regional motor rally involved products that were not made in East Africa, cars and fuel, it brought in tourists who boosted our local economies.

Had the Community continued to survive, one wonders what would have become today of the regional motor rally.

It could certainly have joined the likes of Paris-Dakar motor rally.

Ends.

WHY PICK CHINA?

WHY PICK CHINA?

THE importance of picking China lies in the fact that they showed both Tanzania and Zambia as far back as the late 1960s and early 1970s that as far as construction of railway lines, they were second to none in the world.

Secondly, China is one of very few countries in the world that is not complicated when it comes to negotiating with it for any economic deal or development.

And this is especially so when it deals with a developing country like Tanzania. Indeed, China would not have built Tazara had they been complicated.

Both Nyerere and Dr Kaunda approached the Chinese government having been turned down by the West.

And the former came in and built the best railway line in the continent in terms of the rough and difficult terrain the railway line passes through to the Zambian station of Kapiri Mposhi.

Had that railway line been built by a western country it would have cost Tanzania a fortune and it could have taken longer with its cost rising with each passing stage.

Secondly, Tanzania has another example of the Chinese government’s willingness to work with developing countries, namely the on going construction of an Olympic size International Stadium close to the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam.

On completion of the Stadium it would have a sitting capacity of 60,000, meaning that Tanzania would now be in a position to host the All Africa Games.

This is because it would have the stadium complete with a running track, an international swimming pool and an indoor stadium for hosting games such as basketball, netball, boxing, you name it.

And all the three structures would be state of the art. According to well informed sources, the three structures would be comparable to any international Stadium, swimming pool and indoor stadium in the world.

In fact Tanzania’s main problem would be how to maintain such structures.

In terms of railway line engineering, the Chinese last year proved to the world that they were second to none in the area when they built a railway line linking their country and Tibet.

The railway line is 16,500 metres above sea level, making it the highest railway point in the world!

And because of the high altitude, it is said that during construction, Chinese railway engineers and workers had to carry on their back oxygen tanks because of the thin air in the region mountain ranges through which the railway line was being built.

Because of the thin air, it is reported that trains that would be plying in the region would be pressurised in the same way planes are.

What is more, the Chinese engineers drilled numerous hills in the same way they had done at Mlimba, in Morogoro region which is 1,000 metres above sea level.

And again Mlimba is the highest railway point in Africa. What this means is that there is no railway line in Africa that has such highest railway point like Mlimba.

Soon after completion of the railway line, it required two engines to tug coaches and wagons along the Tazara line, especially at Mlimba.

The point is, if Kikwete’s administration wants to kill two birds with one stone, that is, create more than one million jobs while at the same time solve the country’s huge infrastructure problem once and for all, then it has to face the Chinese with the proposed suggestion.

At present one of the problems facing Tanzania, as far as the exploitation of the iron ore at Liganga is concerned, is said to be the huge amount of power required for such a job.

But Liganga is close to massive deposits of coal which could be used as source of energy for smelting iron ore from Liganga.

Alternatively, the Government could enter an agreement to build a maze of railway line in the country as soon as beginning next year, but with a clause that the Chinese government would be part of the exploration of the iron ore deposits once the required power for smelting iron ore is obtained.

Indeed, if they could build Tazara through their own raw material, why should they fail to build the required maze of railway lines in the country that would go a long way towards solving, once and for all, the country’s present massive transport problem?

It is important for the present administration to realize that one of the reasons why President Kikwete received a landslide victory last year is because many Tanzanians, especially the youth, believed that he would give them jobs.

For instance when he addressed a massive rally at the Jangwani playing grounds, during the election campaigns last year, most of the people were not only youth, but were also either semi literate or illiterate.

The two groups too elected Kikwete because they believed that he would give them jobs, secure jobs at that.

The question is if he does not build a maze of railway lines during his term in office, how is he going to provide the one million plus jobs?

It is only through the construction of a maze of railway lines in the country through the use of our own resources, iron ore from Liganga and Chinese or any country that would be ready to get into a barter payment system that President Kikwete would be able to give more than one million jobs.

What is more, most of those million plus jobs would be for keeps. This is because on completion of such maze of railway lines, the Government would require workers- skilled and unskilled to man the railway line.

Construction work would absorb all kind of workers from engineering graduates from the country’s universities to technicians, semi literate and illiterates.

The Kikwete administration ought to consider this: Supposing construction of the maze of railway lines throughout the country employees over one million people and each person has between five and ten people to support behind him or her, what would be the trickle down effect?

OTHER BENEFITS:

The immediate benefits to be reaped from construction of such maze of railway lines throughout the country is that, one, the arable land in the country which is one of the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa would be opened up to agriculture, livestock and industrial development.

Instead of depending on expensive trucks, what with the on going galloping fuel prices, for transporting agricultural produce and industrial goods, the maze of railway lines would take care of that.

And because the gauge of the railway line would be linked and similar to that of Tazara, the railway line would be able to carry more and heavier goods to neighbouring countries of Zambia, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, northern Mozambique, Malawi and other countries.

And once the present power problem is solved once and for all, Tanzania national grid linked to that of other Southern Africa Development Community’s (SADC) member states, it would be possible for Tanzania to link its maze of railway lines to power.

The implication of this is that trains along the massive maze of railway lines would be powered not by fuel, but by electricity in the same way Inter-City trains are powered in Europe, meaning that they will be travelling at a speed of between 200 and 250 kilometres per hour!

In terms of distance and time span, what this means is that a train from Dar es Salaam to Iringa which is 500 kilometres away, would take less than three hours! The same thing could be said about a train travelling along the central line to Kigoma.

Instead of taking four days, it would take less than a day! The foregoing infrastructural revolution through the maze of railway lines is quite possible because unlike our neighbours Kenya and Uganda, we have iron ore and we should make use of it now!

It is better to be left with half of iron ore deposits because we have exchanged them with another country, but solve our present transport problem rather than to continue suffering from all kinds of transport problems.

Such a massive railway construction project would require for instance the central line to be raised so high that no floods would destroy it, making it passable throughout the year in the same way Tazara is.

Secondly, the railway line could be protected with fence, especially in areas where it goes through national parks like the Selous Games Reserve.

If the present administration goes ahead and implements such a project, it would take not less than ten years to complete it and the beauty of it is that by the end of the project, Tanzania would have transformed itself economically into an emergent African nation.

And only with the possession of such massive maze of railway lines can Tanzania be able to entice bona fide investors.
With such a railway system from Mtwara to the border with Malawi and Mozambique and from Tanga to Musoma and from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma and other neighbouring countries, there would be no pile up of goods at the Tanzanian ports along the Indian Ocean.

If Tanzania can serve well its neighbours as gateway to the Indian Ocean and by extension, to the other parts of the world, it should be able to have enough money to finance its entire government budget!

Tanzania has been talking about what it refers to as the Vision 2025 in which it hopes to reduce poverty quite considerably.

To me I don’t see how Tanzania is going to realize such an ambitious goal by that year if it does not take its infrastructure, and in particular, railway line seriously.

It is important for the present Government to realize that roads, no matter how many it builds in the country, would take it nowhere because roads don’t last long.

Besides, they require repair now and then. But a railway line is quite different. Consider the Tazara as a case in point. The only time we have had derailment has been through sabotage not because of bad engineering or lack of maintenance.

Even the weakest railway line (in terms of its small gauge which is no more in use in the world) like the central line, it has served the nation faithfully since it was first built by the Germans in 1901!

And if the present Tazara is well maintained, it can serve the two countries for more than two centuries and that should be Tanzania’s way forward, construction of a maze of railway lines rather than roads.

Construction of roads would be meaningful and would last long if we have a maze of railway lines covering the length and breadth of our nation.

Another important thing to bear in mind is that with over 940,000 square kilometres, Tanzania is one of the largest countries in Africa.

If countries like Germany that are almost twice the size of Tanzania, depend on railway lines for their transport as opposed to roads, what makes us insist on construction of roads rather than railway lines?

As noted by President Kikwete, land is our main resource for extricating ourselves from abject poverty we are in.

But the only way of doing that is not through those financial institutions which dish out money even to people who are not trained in business, but through opening up our land so that peasants and farmers can transport cheaply their agricultural produce through trains rather than fuel guzzling trucks and other types of vehicles.

Once our peasants and farmers realize that there are cheaper means of transporting their agricultural produce from point A to point B, then they would not need to be pushed into agricultural endeavours.

Ends.

How Kikwete Can Create Over a Million Jobs

How Kikwete can create over one million jobs

As already known, President Jakaya Kikwete has pledged, more than once, to create one million jobs during his term in office. To some people, the President’s pledge is easier said than done. However, in this article, Staff Writer, ATTILIO TAGALILE, argues that the President’s is not only realisable, but that he could create more than one million jobs if focused on infrastructure and especially, construction of a maze of railway lines throughout the country. Read on.

One of the best ways of realising the more than a million job creation dream would be through the effective use of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development.

The ministry actually holds the key to the President’s dream which is attainable, but the ministry can only do that not through construction of roads, but a maze of railway lines.

Since the country has massive deposits of iron ore, at Liganga, in Iringa region, what the Government could and should in fact do is to embark on railway construction, all over the country.

It is well known that rail construction is a labour intensive work in that it requires hundreds of thousands of workers.

In fact this was best illustrated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during construction by Chinese engineers, of the Tanzania Zambia Railway, TAZARA, which was then also best known as the Uhuru railway.

Many people, literate, semi-literate and illiterates from Iringa, Mbeya and other neighbouring regions were recruited to build Tazara.

The fourth phase government could do it again by extending Tazara (and through the use of the same international rail gauge) throughout the country.

What this means is that it should uproot the central line and build a stronger railway line whose gauge would be similar to that of Tazara.

Through the use of a rail gauge similar to that of Tazara, the new railway line would have the capacity of carrying heavier goods from the Dar es Salaam port to the hinterland and other neighbouring countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC and others.

Yes, the present Government can do that through the use of the same people who built Tazara, the Chinese Government and here is where President Kikwete comes in.

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development on its own cannot talk the Chinese Government into undertaking such a gigantic and ambitious project.

The point is, the President should try to get in touch with his Chinese counterparts. For a start, a trip to China would not be a bad idea.

Besides, the Government does not have to worry where to get money from since it has what is more valuable than money, massive deposits of iron ore that experts say can last over a century!

In other words, the Government does not need to go to the donors in the west or the Bretton Woods institutions, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, for credit for construction of such a maze of railway lines throughout the country.

Because like what was experienced by Mwalimu Nyerere and the then Zambian President, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, the present Government would face the same problem.

The west would be ready to help Tanzania build roads which at the end of the day would hardly last ten years!

Secondly, construction of a maze of railway lines all over the country would cost billions of dollars and no western country would be ready to part with that and for understandable reasons.

Therefore the only way out is to get in touch with the Chinese Government which is one of the three countries in the world which lead in consumption of steel.

According to one of the issues of an American weekly, ‘Newsweek’ published early last year, the Federal Republic of Germany is the leading consumer of steel in the world followed by China and India.

The magazine wrote that China was so much in need of steel that its imports were such that ships were not enough to carry the load the country wanted!

What this means is that since we have massive deposits of iron ore, the Government could try to talk to their Chinese counterparts on the possibility of asking them to help in building a network of railway lines in Tanzania that would link up with the present Tazara.

And instead of paying cash, the two governments could work out a barter trade that could be in the form of giving the Chinese government part of our iron ore that would be commensurate to the to the cost of building a network of railway lines they would have built in Tanzania.

This suggestion may look weird to some people, yet most of the countries which have made a mark, economically, have had to take routes which were seen as impossible.

The kind of railway network one could look at includes a railway line that could link all towns in the country from the south to the north and from the east to the west.

In short the railway line could be built from the south eastern port of Mtwara to towns like Songea, Mbeya, Iringa, and Sumbawanga to the tip of Lake Tanganyika in the south.

The other rail link could start from Dar es Salaam to Tanga, Musoma, Mwanza, Arusha, Shinyanga, Tabora, and Kigoma to the border with Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.

The other railway line could start from Shinyanga and head down to the south as far as the border with Zambia.

But the maze of railway lines should, as noted earlier, have similar gauge with that of Tazara which is an international gauge that has made it possible trains from South Africa to travel all the way from that country to Dar es Salaam.

There are those in love with both the East African Community, EAC, and the Federation who are likely to question the logic of replacing the central lines with a different rail gauge now that some see Tanzania moving closer to Kenya and Uganda.

It is time we stopped entertaining regional blocks that do not seem to be helping Tanzania in the long run.

We need to start looking inwardly, not negatively, but in a manner that would help to extricate the majority of Tanzanians from abject poverty.

Tanzania Government’s objective should be to build modern railway lines that would make its ports of Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Tanga relevant to our neighbouring land-locked countries.

For too long we have spent valuable time, financial and human resources servicing regional blocks and liberation movements.

The question we ought to be asking ourselves are what benefits having we reaped from them.

Need for Govt to Focus

Need for Govt to focus on one thing at time

In an interview with one of our weekly sister papers published in Kiswahili, Rai, the Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, BoT, Daudi Balali was quoted as saying the best way for Tanzania to get out of its present economic problems was for the Government to concentrate on one thing at a time instead of trying to solve all problems at the same time. Staff Writer, ATTILIO TAGALILE looks at the relevancy of the BoT’s chief in relation to the present Government’s pledge to create a million jobs for Tanzanians. Read on.

Although Balali did not go into details, what he actually meant was that every financial year, during budget session, efforts should be made by the Government to spent most of its financial resources in solving one problem.

He said if such a problem was say, the country’s infrastructure, then the Government could focus on that by setting aside more funds for dealing with the problem. The Governor said once such a choice was made and implemented to the letter, the Government would not need to dwell on the same problem again at later stage or years.

Balali’s argument makes a lot of sense, especially for developing countries such as Tanzania that have very little financial resources.

Indeed, trying to spread such meagre financial and other resources all over, trying to solve each and every problem would not take this country far.

If one looks at the performance of the past three successive governments, one is likely to appreciate Balali’s argument.

Take the first phase government of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere as a case in point.

The Father of the Nation was somewhat focused, despite his failure in extricating the nation from abject poverty.

For instance Mwalimu concentrated on one and only one thing, riding the nation of ignorance.

In order to succeed in that area, he nationalised some important religious owned schools mostly by Catholic and Lutheran churches so that children from other denominations who did not own schools could go and study in such schools.

Of course, the foregoing two denominations were not happy. But Mwalimu’s objective was to build one strong nation.

He did not want to have a nation that would have one or two denominations that had highly educated people and others with lowly or completely illiterate people.

Because his Government had few secondary schools, and he could not build as many schools as possible, for lack of money, he did what he did.

In a way, Mwalimu’s act was very important in that it avoided what is presently going on in Ivory Coast between the Muslim north and the Christian south, the former claiming, and some extent rightly, that they had been marginalised.

Therefore whatever peace politicians and government leaders in the last two governments and the present one have been talking about in Tanzania had more to do with Mwalimu’s vision than anything else.

Because he realised that the majority of his people were living in abject poverty, he knew that the best way of getting them out of poverty was through education.

But since the majority of Tanzanians were poor and therefore had no money to pay for their children’s education,
Mwalimu quickly introduced free education from primary school to university level.

In fact this explains the main reason why it is possible today to see highly educated people from all corners and nooks in the country.

Such a development was made possible because Mwalimu was focused. Knowing that his government had no money, he decided to do one thing at a time, and for him peace and tranquillity was a priority.

Therefore Mwalimu realised that the only way of ridding the nation of ignorance and building a cohesive nation was through education. And like Balali’s argument, Mwalimu succeeded because he chose one thing at a time!

And those who missed free education; they were afforded the opportunity to study later through the establishment of what came to be known as Adult Education programme.

Students were asked to use their vocation in the villages teaching their parents and other adults who did not know how to read and write.

After the first ten years, Tanzania had wiped out ignorance by 75 per cent. What was more; Tanzania was the only country in Africa to achieve such commendable goal!

Mwalimu succeeded in building a strong, peaceful nation because he was focused on nation building through education. But that was not all. He later decided to introduce Kiswahili as the national language, hence cementing national unity.

Other areas he focused on in order to build tranquillity in the country were the establishment of the National Service.

Under the foregoing programme, illiterates, semi literate, high school leavers, graduates and professionals mingled together as they were taken through military drills and other training.

Coupled with the Government’s decision to ensure that those who passed class seven were sent to secondary schools away from their home, Mwalimu finally succeeded to put in place what we have today, an island of peace.

The big question and challenge facing our nation today is: Shall we be able to maintain our present peace and tranquillity?

What is however, unfortunate is that the last two governments were not as focused as Mwalimu and the result is for all to see! Most of the problems we currently face have more to do with lack of focus than anything else!

As noted by Balali, our African governments, and in particular, the present Government ought to focus on one or two things, to choose what it thinks is a priority and deal with it.

It ought to decide what it wants to do, fight corruption or build the economy and if our focus is in our economy what part of the economy?

When President Jakaya Kikwete was campaigning for the presidency of the United Republic of Tanzania last year, he pledged to create one million jobs for Tanzania during his term in office.

The President repeated his goal soon after being sworn in. But he has not yet elaborated on how he is going to create one million plus jobs for a variety of reasons that include lack of time to focus on what he wants.

One of the reasons why he has not yet started dealing with the pledge is that immediately he was sworn in, he had to deal with armed robberies and other vices which had sprung up.

Yet the President’s pledge, the provision of one million jobs, is not a pipe dream. It can be fulfilled if he wants to and is closely assisted by capable lieutenants.

In his first speech to the Parliament early this year, one of the things he said was that Tanzania’s major resource was not minerals, but rather land.

What the President meant was that the country’s salvation lay not on minerals which would be finished in no time and leave the nation with holes, but land that could be used in developing modern agriculture and livestock keeping.

Indeed, if small countries like Botswana have managed to turn around their economies through livestock development and just one mineral, diamonds, why not Tanzania?

It was his conviction on the importance of land as the country’s saviour from abject poverty that probably led him into creating three separate ministries of water, and agriculture and that of energy and minerals.

It is not however, known having done what he did, creating the foregoing ministries, what the President hopes to do.

The second interesting move by the President was his decision to form what has come to be known as the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, combining everything from rail to roads.

Again like the first three ministries, it is not known what the present Government intends to achieve through the Ministry of Infrastructure Development.

However, one thing Tanzania is endowed with, under the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, is that it has massive deposits of iron ore at Liganga in Iringa region, a mineral that could hold the key not only to Tanzania’s economic success, but also to President Kikwete’s dream to create a million jobs for Tanzanians.

Ends

How strong are our buses?

How strong are bodies of our buses in preventing high death toll?

On Thursday the Deputy Minister for Public Safety and Security, Mohamed Aboud toured areas along the Dar es Salaam, Morogoro road notorious for some of the worst motor accidents in the country’s history.

The minister visited the spots at Kibaha and Chalinze, both in Coast region.

The section around Kibaha was a few days ago the scene of a major road accident that involved a bus company christened Champion bus.

In that accident, 16 people died on the spot and a few days later three more people died bringing the death toll to 19.

Over 40 people were injured, some of them very seriously.

During Aboud’s visit at the notorious road sections, he made numerous suggestions to the traffic police on how road carnage, especially at the notorious sections could be curbed.

Because the Champion’s driver has already been committed to court, it would be contempt of court to discuss anything related to that accident.

However, one thing that is worthy discussing today, with a view to reducing these road carnage, is what the minister said in relation to the quality of the body of our passenger buses.

The minister now becomes the first senior government official, but the second person in living memory to touch on the quality of the body of our buses.

Again, for certain reasons that border on the media law of privacy, I would not like to mention the name of the second, and actually, the first man to raise the issue of standards of body buses.

However, to understand what the minister was driving at, it would be pertinent to flash back to what the first man to raise the issue said last year.

The man, one of the leading transporters in the country, had called on the government to look into possibility of ensuring that locally build bodies for buses met the required international standard.

The transporter noted that experience had shown that whenever many people were killed in a passenger bus, more often than not the body of such a bus would have been locally made.

His argument was that because many locally assembled bus bodies manufacturing companies did not adhere to international standards, whenever such buses overturned, they have their roofs separated from the other parts of the body.

What that meant was that materials used for joining the roof of such buses with their bodies was not strong enough to keep the bus intact as it rolls after say a tyre burst.

Despite raising such a pertinent point that is relevant to the safety of passengers, nothing was done by authority concerned and the carnage has continued unabated!

Even an institution like the Tanzania Bureau of Standards, TBS, elected to remain mum over an issue it should have been closely involved in.

But what some authority is more concerned is not the safety of mass of people using bus transport, but individuals most of whom have numerous choices when it comes to choosing the mode of travel.

For instance, we now hear of stories about buying cars that are from 90s onwards.

Others are regarded as junk. Yet the same cars that were manufactured in 1990s are equally junk as they were driven in Japan for at least ten years and later reconditioned for Africa and other developing countries.

There was also time when some senior government officials were talking of the need to ensure that only new cars or vehicles were imported.

Yet, if one was to be honest and ask how many Tanzanians were capable of buying new cars, the fact of the matter is that only big businessmen and women can do that.

Members of Parliament have also been driving new vehicles, but we all know who buys such vehicles for them, it is our tax payers.

Most of the senior government officials involved in such weird decisions are warrant holders, people who have government coffers at their disposal.

These are people who do not know the reality outside their cosy, air conditioned offices!

To these people as long as they can afford to get new four wheel drives for their offices which they later buy in subtly arranged auction after seven years, the rest can go to hell as once pronounced by a former minister for communication and transport when he was put to task over Tanzania Railways Corporation’s train

problems to upcountry stations.

It is the hope of many Tanzanians, and in particular, those who have been following road carnage closely that the ministry of public safety and security and would take interest in the quality of bodies of locally made buses.

The private transporter who had tried to raise the issue of the quality of bodies of locally made buses was fought right, left and centre by local manufacturers that he almost lost his business.

It is our hope that the ministry responsible and the TBS will pick a leaf from the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Abbas Kandoro who has decided that he is not going to take any more nonsense from the machingas.

Our only fear is that he may relent, that could be his undoing. He ought to continue to pull the chain by turning Dar es Salaam into one of the best cities in the continent.

That is possible if machingas are given designated areas specifically prepared for their operations.

That is the only way of ensuring that our streets are not turned into shopping malls.

The same thing is applicable to road accidents. It is not enough to talk about the high quality or otherwise of the bodies of our buses.

Those concerned with maintaining such high quality standards ought to work on such problems now.

Otherwise road carnage would continue and that is not fair.

Ends.