Former President Benjamin Mkapa yesterday refrained to directly comment on his leadership, but said he believed that he served the country well.

He made the remarks when reacting to a query from a participant during the second Benjamin Mkapa HIV/AIDS Foundation (BMAF) annual stake holders meeting in Dar es Salaam.

The question whether Mr Mkapa and his government can stand tall today came after the former president had finished his presentation in which he outlined some qualities of a good leader.

In his presentation on the 'Leadership role in a resource constrained setting', Mr Mkapa, who established the foundation after retiring from active public service, said Tanzania being an under developed country needs a leader who can properly utilise the limited resources for economic gains.

He said Tanzania also needs a leader who can find ways to solve chronic problems, such as lack of capital, skills and technology, in order to bring about economic development.

Mr Mkapa said for any group to attain certain development, it needs to have a leader who has the quality of a good leader.

He used his favourite book on leadership by Lee Iacocca titled "Where have all the leaders gone?" to describe nine qualities that make a good leader.

According to him, a good leader should be curious, communicative, have character, courage, charisma, competence, conviction and common sense.

"A successful leader in constrained circumstances must fully grasp his organisation's mission and strategy; he must impart and articulate to his colleagues and clients and be able to assess what should be done with the limited resources,"Mr Mkapa said.

After his remarks, a participant asked him if he and his government had those qualities during his two terms in the country's top office. Mr Mkapa was very coy in his response.

"It is hard to assess myself; you are the ones who are supposed to give an assessment of my performance, but since you have asked I must say yes, I had those qualities," Mr Mkapa said.

On the health sector, Mr Mkapa decried the country's failure to meet the Abuja declaration for three consecutive years.

The declaration requires all African countries to devote 15 per cent of their national budgets to the health sector.

"As per the health public expenditure report from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the health sector approved budget (in absolute terms) has been increasing by 18 per cent between 2006/07 and 2008/09. However, the share has been stagnating for three years around 11 per cent," he said.

He also cited the human resource capacity in the health sector, in terms of number and quality, as still wanting and a serious constraint.

"The health sector is being served by only 38 per cent of the required health workforce, with marked urban-rural disparities,"he said.

He noted that other human resource limitations in the sector are a reflection of shortcomings in technical capacity, compounded by technological changes.

He said the health workforce crisis, just like the education work force, has continued to be the veritable obstacle towards the sector's sustainable development.

Mr Mkapa said the poor infrastructure has also been a hindrance to the donors to reach the most remote areas where people are dying due to lack of health services.

According to him, in order to address the two bottlenecks squarely, effective leadership and management in the context of public-private partnership was of paramount importance.

Speaking during the event, the Pan African Business coalition executive, Mr Richard Kasesera, urged the Government to take serious action in reforming the health sector as it did for the education sector.

He said the Government should ensure that it solves the problem of workforce in the sector by creating good working conditions for the current staff before thinking of hiring more of them.

"With this situation of poor salaries and outstanding debts, I bet very few will be interested to work in the sector. It is very important if the government would improve the situation before thinking of hiring more staff," Mr Kasesera said.

Meanwhile, the former President yesterday denied media reports which quoted him commenting on allegations levelled against him by some politicians and through the media.

"I do not remember mentioning God at any point in my Monday welcoming remarks... but this proves how much we lack professionals in our media, and I am very disappointed with them," Mr Mkapa said.

A number of media outlets yesterday quoted Mr Mkapa as saying he left for God to decide on the accusations that have been levelled against him personally and his government.