The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
5 December 2007
opinion
Last week Tanzania received two VIPs from the Commonwealth fraternity.
The most prominent visitor was Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper while the other one was British Secretary of State Douglas Alexander.
Such visits can be interesting. They have a way of coinciding with local politics which affect our relations internationally. Last year when a British dignitary of Alexander's eminence visited Tanzania the British Parliament was discussing the controversy that surrounded the sale of the overpriced radar system to Tanzania by a British company, BAE.
As the honourable British MPs squeezed answers from their government over the radar deal, in Tanzania it was the media and a few other people who were making similar noises.
And this time around the British Secretary of State comes to Tanzania at a time when the House of Commons is said to be concerned whether the money the British government commits to Tanzania is spent properly.
According to the press, the British Secretary of State said in Dar es Salaam that recent revelations that colossal sums of money was fraudulently siphoned from the Bank of Tanzania and paid to phony local and foreign companies were worrying his country.
Although Mr Alexander was quoted as having later praised Tanzania for its peace and recent economic progress the bigger message, on corruption surrounding the BoT, had been delivered.
The fact is, when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Dar es Salaam the first thing that hit him on the face as he alighted from the plane was the heat caused by the issue of mining contracts.
Like the radar issue, the question of how to share our minerals with foreign investors has been the subject of discussion in the Canadian Parliament, not ours.
Here it has been President Jakaya Kikwete who, acting from voices of discontent, has said repeatedly that we must renegotiate with investors in the mining sector in order to reach a win-win situation.
In our Parliament mining has apparently been declared a taboo subject. Mr Zitto Kabwe, the Chadema MP for Kigoma North, knows it too well that now people increasingly doubt whether he will ever mention the word "mineral" in Parliament.
But the Canadian PM has concurred with President Kikwete that Tanzanians should benefit more from their minerals.
He assured his Tanzanian host that he too believed in Kikwete's win-win plan. Harper also announced that Canada would donate $105 (about Shl20.75 billion) million over five years as part of the $500-million (about Sh575 billion) health improvement program for Africa and Asia . Part of this fund would help train about 40,000 frontline health workers.
The British visitor also delivered almost a similar message: Britain would double its aid to Tanzania .
Cynics, however, would not hesitate to use Yoweri Museveni's language when talking about such promises on aid:
They would see the mining contracts that highly benefit Canadian companies as Tanzania 's aid to Canada . Likewise, they would see Tanzania 's radar deal that highly benefited a British company as this country's aid to Britain.
They would definitely see many such areas where Tanzania gives aid to developed countries without any publicity. And this could be the rational explanation that even developed countries no longer want to be referred to as "donors". They know we are "Development Partners", which is exactly what we are.
About two weeks ago a pilot study by a London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on the effectiveness of some aspects of development assistance revealed some interesting results.
The study which was conducted in Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, India and Bangladesh, faulted donor agencies for their failure to involve beneficiaries in the processes of project formulation and execution.
According to press reports, some 261 senior stakeholders in recipient countries were asked to assess the performance of the African Development Bank (AfDB), European Commission(EU), United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF), Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Bank.
According to the report, Tanzanian respondents particularly picked issue with the World Bank accusing it of imposing policies on the government and meddling in project implementation. According to the researchers, the WB is perceived as imposing a neo-liberal policy framework. And these days this is conveniently referred to as "macro-economic stabilization".
In Bangladesh, for instance, the study found out that donors organized up to 300 meetings annually to discuss the financing of just about 20 development projects.
According to the ODI research fellow, Simon Burall, the study which was commissioned by the Department of International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, focused on disbursement of funds.
He further revealed that a similar study next year would seek to assess the overall effectiveness of multilateral organizations.
These studies are extremely important for they would help throw some light on some weird notions that have been floated around regarding Africans and aid (including AIDS).
The results may also put to test what Dr Watson alluded to in his controversial remarks about the failure of various development policies in Africa .
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