THE global financial crunch, around the end of last year, seemed more of a semantic than a reality.

But as the days edged closer to December this year, the problem gradually became a reality, with the government signaling intentions on how it could widen its domestic tax base because donors were facing a worst financial woe in many years.

The local communities were told that effects would not be so bad. This was encouraging. It was not just a statement of assessed fact.

People were at the time getting to know that they were plunging into the unknown especially for those who had just got secure jobs and businesses on the take off.

For workers and business people, the year started rather sluggishly, hardly gaining pace. There were uncertainties as to how big the impact of the global financial crunch would be and whether it would indeed affect Tanzanians in any way.

As we approach the end of the year optimists see Tanzania to have weathered the effects of major economic shocks in the past one year even as many others still agonise from its ripples.

Still, others are not sure whether they will survive the rigours of the financial crush and regain their economic good balance.

In sum, the year has been an interesting one. It saw politicians fiercely divided on a number of issues, prompting some of them to hurl venomous accusations at one another about a variety of things from power shortage, corruption allegations, ethics degradation to electoral mudslinging in the run up to the general elections next year.

However, all said and done, this year is a time Tanzanians would wish to forget, especially because it was when hundreds lost jobs some two months after the ripples of the financial crisis spread, leaving desolation in its wake.

Everyone was uncertain, to say the least, but the government seemed to use one of the words that begin with 'E' - encouragement, education, enforcement, engineering.

Many countries are using them to keep things going. With regard to the word 'encouragement' our powers that be is not an exception. It was encouragement that emboldened us against the global financial crunch, making us think it would not damage us because our economy is not fully integrated with the bigger ones of the first world, which were harder hit.

However, in the following months financial hardships threatened to plunge the country into a bigger unemployment time through large layoffs when three multinationals in the agricultural and mining sector declared redundant hundreds just before economic dawn. On the political scene, people thought the year 2009 would be like 2010.

A colleague who had a previous peek into how elections are prepared remarked that it would be a year of mobilization for those who would want to stand for elections for the year 2010 - but that one seemed to surface towards the year's end.

If CCM Members of Parliament were ever in doubt about their cooperation with one another other, their exploits-or as it were, their shenanigans on the floor of Parliament, the budget session in July, left little room for speculation.

The ministers could certainly not claim to have a high popularity ranking with fellow lawmakers, as they received a bashing from the MPs in an unprecedented manner. Pangs of the financial crunch were the nasty experience that affected the financial institutions sector.

The months after the effects were like giant onions with uncountable layers one would endlessly peel off, leaving in the wake nasty results of lay offs and much grievances in the financial sector.

It was a few months after the government had passed its budget that pangs of the global financial crisis hit. Then one of the worse things possibly as a result of the financial crunch, a worse thing happened.

The government's body TACAIDS, a government-owned body stopped free provision of Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) for people living with HIV/Aids by cutting is annual budget by 20 per cent.

A global report forecast that over 70 per cent of people on ARV treatment would be affected in the subsequent 12 months as health organisations cut on their budgets for the same reason.

ARVs, which delay the onset of AIDS, are seen as critical to mitigating the destructive impact of the scourge. Yet access to the drugs still remains difficult for thousands of poor people countrywide.

With HIV/Aids, there is a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halt the deadly virus move by 2015 by reversing the spread of HIV/Aids.

This is one area the government has scored considerable success, despite the relatively slow prevalence of the disease today. Lack of money nevertheless, has cast a shadow of a murky future in this area on account of the global financial crunch.

Tanzania is among sub-Sahara countries that have recorded a significant drop in the national average HIV infection rate to about 5per cent from over ten per cent in the past few years. Relatively, as the war goes on, observers say the efforts have made an impact and shown improvement.

This year, could also define the next set of electoral laws given the fact that much debate has been on the issue both in the Parliament and on various political fora.

Through a Bill that could be tabled in the next Parliamentary session in January next year, electoral law reforms are coming meant for the removal of unscrupulous loophole which have transpired in past elections.

The bill is also expected to give the National Electoral Commission more powers and independence. As we head towards 2010 and view 2009 in retrospect, our political journey has been an improbable one. But we must face the future with the big 'E' - Encouragement and Education.