W2E001T
Our Viewpoint
Change now
SOCIAL science philosophers behold that to everything, living and nonliving, there is change. And it is in the course of change that the starting and finishing lines can be drawn.
More precisely, change of formation of an object, and not necessarily change of position, is what ensures its real existence in the realm of transformation or dynamism.
This being quite obvious to many a human beings, it is surprising to learn that many do resist change even if change is to their help or advantage.
Tanzania is one of a few African countries which, since independence 30 years ago, has not bothered to change its political formation for better transformation and adaptation.
The unitarian political movement based on egalitarian socialism purveyed by the leadership has been getting frequent redresses, but all to no sufficient efficacy.
What is common in the polity is the sticking to power of the leaders - with occasional position changes with the same players and the same rules.
Irrespective of this, they do not see that the socioeconomic problems have already fragmented the socialist unitarian movement built during the struggle for independence which has been holding Tanzanians together irrespective of class or social group differences.
While this differentiation, along economic, ideological, political and even cultural lines, is surging forward threatening the very foundation of the fundamental unitarian movement, it would be reasonable for every Tanzanian to give change a chance.
In view of this, change - and for that matter meaningful change - does not mean the change of positions alone, but fundamental changes of the structure which have outlived their usefulness and their actors through democratic means acceptable to the majority of Tanzanians.
It is worthwhile to remember the old saying. "Silent revolutions are inevitable so that violent revolutions can be avoided." 
We are partners
THE QUICK and silent manner in which the customs and sales tax department has responded to the alarm raised by the Dar es Salaam Merchants Chamber over the harassment of its members by tax collectors and assessors is businesslike.
From now on the tax officers and inspectors will show courtesy and respect in dealing with tax payers. They will carry on them identity cards and introduction forms to eliminate frauds and impersonation.
For it is one thing to insist and demand that the right taxes be paid fully and on time and quite another to induce payment through threats, annoyance and blackmail. The amicable manner in which the thorny issue has been handled and settled is a lesson unto how much can be achieved if the trading community is properly organised into chambers and association under an able leadership.
After all, we are partners in progress.
Clear and loud
TWO SWALLOWS do not make a summer; but for those looking for an end of the tunnel, the sighting of even one is comforting. So Tanzania, battling hard to woe foreign investment, must be quite pleased with news of more earnest enquiries landing on the desk of the Investment Promotion Centre week after week.
The total investment involved is not large yet, and the goods to be manufactured and services rendered are not dramatic.
But for those willing to see and listen, the message is clear and loud: a substantial number of corporate entities overseas are taking notice of the Tanzania market with its potential for outlets to the ?OCC and PTA entire region.
This will not immediately lead to a flood of dollars. But it is a positive development which needs to be exploited carefully so that over the coming decade, Tanzania can alter the pattern of foreign exchange inflow, from loans and aid to direct foreign investment and trade.
There are problems, of course. The ICP must move fast to become a truly one-stop for an investor's queries, licences and permits.
And on another score a comprehensive programme to synchronise the provision of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, flights, water, power and phones must be speeded up.
Without an enabling environment most of the enquiries will end in the ICP files, the enquirers unable to push their intentions to their logical conclusions. 
Pants down
OUTGOING USAID director Joseph Stepanek has some frank things to say about Tanzania and about the role of donors in supporting our current development efforts. If we are to make progress towards the right direction we need reform, he says.
Reform means "trusting the people" by introducing more democratic political institutions. Reform also means trusting the market by introducing more independent economic institutions. That means reducing the role of the government in the economy.
But, as Stepanek rightly points out, the donors also have to reform. They must stop competing with each other to gain shores of the aid market irrespective of absorptive capacity."
They must stop financing low priority projects just to get rid of the money. They should worry more about capacity building and "sustainability" They must not give aid simply to solve the home country problem.
An example is a donor who would insist on giving a specific brand of a tractor to create employment in his home country and to pave the way for future spare parts outlet, irrespective of the suitability of the machine for the recipient country's soil.
The quality of aid is more important than the quantity. Many donors and Tanzanians quietly share Stepanek's views about the need for dramatic reform, including reform on the donor side of the equation.
It would not be difficult to argue the case for progressively less aid: if aid money does not help the poor or stimulate economic adjustment or increase the government's capacity to govern, then what use is it? How can more aid be justified?
A one billion dollar cheque is enough to kill off any hope of rapid structural adjustment. It could insulate the government from internal pressures for rapid reform.
But such expectations could change very rapidly. With or without reforms in the aid "culture," the donors are likely to find reasons for cutting down support to Tanzania quite substantially in the coming years. Many have started to express concern over whether we are serious about further adjustment.
We will soon find out how serious they are. And shame on us if the time comes and we are caught with our pants down.
Hail Mrema
MEASURES being taken by the Bank of Tanzania to put the economy on the growth side of the scales may not be sufficient, but they are certainly to be complimented.
The high rate of inflation was due to an unproductive money supply from thefts and corruption in places of power rather than from an accelerated economy. Fiscal and monetary policies which made money increasingly expensive and scarce in the economy had been misdirected.
Yes, they reduced disposable incomes. But only to make life terribly miserable to the innocent. In other words, two different economies have been operating under totally different conditions.
What was good - if it was at all good - for the goose, never was good for the gander.
How could high taxes and interests reduce thefts? The real culprits continued looting with impunity at either the high interest rate or the disincentive tax level.
To our minds it is the Home Affairs Minister Mrema factor which has restrained the economy rather than fiscal and monetary policies.
Take a sober look around. The country hardly has an indigenous productive base. Indigenous high spenders are the strategically placed politicians and bureaucrats either in direct civil service or in the parastatals.
To reduce spending they must be persuaded or forced to reduce stooling. Is any of the alternatives possible under the present salary scales?
On the other hand, there are two other options to be probed. To right the lot of the common peasant who receives low and less for his produce in relations to the world market prices, how could security based loans, low interest rates, a sliding shilling actually help? Would the policies have worked better the other way round?
These and related questions have to be raised and answered if we are to free ourselves from the economic mess that we are in today. 
LET'S HOLD A REFERENDUM
SOON after X'mas, members of CCM will engage themselves in an exercise to determine their party policy on the structure of United Republic of Tanzania. It is an exercise designed to resolve the contradiction that arose within CCM when the CCM Government chose to support a Parliamentary motion that was contrary to CCM policy.
CCM members are of course entitled to engage themselves in whatever fashion they choose to determine their party policies. In these days of "<ea/>Mageuzi", no one can fault CCM members for wishing to shape their policies democratically.
The trouble with the forthcoming CCM internal exercise in determining party policy is that it is being undertaken after the event. It is a kind of whitewash to cover up the blunder committed by CCM leaders who are in Government when they acted contrary to their Party policy.
If CCM were a party with established policies and principles, the CCM leaders in Government would have had to resign to allow the Party to carry out an impartial exercise. For how can the same Party leaders who have already taken a stand on the issue sincerely preside over the forthcoming party meetings? However, the lack of a principled stand is again an internal affair of CCM justified presumably on the grounds that the "Party must move with the times!"
But the people are anxious and wondering at what the ruling party's <-/manoeuvering> portends for the country. What if the majority of CCM members were to say No to the Government of Tanganyika? Would the CCM Government refuse to implement the Parliamentary motion? Would it then resign or is it too obvious that CCM members will support the change of party policy and vote for the establishment of a Government of Tanganyika?
What about the rest of the people of this country? Considering that the structure of the Union Government has been determined to be a matter on which Parliament alone cannot make a decision, are CCM members alone then entitled to determine the life of our nation?
We would like therefore to underline the suggestion made in Parliament and elsewhere that certain issues pertaining to the life of our nation are too important for one group of politicians or one party to determine. The change in structure of our nation is one such issue and the people, all the people, of this nation should be asked to pronounce themselves in a REFERENDUM on whether or not to establish a separate Government of Tanganyika.
FREE PETROLEUM PRODUCTS? 
This country is in trouble. Our imports which cost dearer and dearer each year are more than our exports whose value is always on the decline. The Government is broke. But we continue to consume more than we produce. The solution? Some of our leaders have decided that they will rove around the world, cup in hand, in search of hand-outs.
The Minister for Home Affairs, the Honourable Mr. Mrema, for example, has just returned from South Africa where reportedly he was promised free petroleum products worth 200 million US dollars each year for an unspecified period!
Mr. Mrema jubilantly told a press conference in Dar es Salaam this week that a consortium of South African companies, PIDICO, has also offered to buy 400 million US dollars of the country's external debt in return for local currency which it would use to develop local farm products for export!
Someone, somewhere once described this kind of "mumbo-jumbo" as "voodoo" economics. Mr. Mrema may not be aware of this, but in the real world there are no economic miracles. There is no free money either, certainly not in South Africa.
An official of the South African Trade Intelligence Programme who was in the country as recently as a month ago did in fact warn against the tendency of expecting that South Africa can solve the Tanzania's economic problems.
W2E002T
Comment
Africa must not be left alone
AFRICA enters the 1990s with its main priority being immediate action to overcome the continent's mounting debt now said to be in the region of 260 billion US dollars.
The continent is still reeling from the economic blows of the 1980s. The crisis appears to defy most of the prescribed solutions and bold alternatives are necessary if Africa is to catch up with the rest of the world in the 1990s.
The picture that emerged towards the end of the last decade was bleak and African countries saw the prices of their primary export commodities failing in the world market and the costs of imports escalating.
With their limited resources, African countries were forced to continue borrowing to cushion themselves against the harsh economic conditions. And in light of the current dictates of the world market, these countries have little left with which to meet their obligations to the mainly Western creditors.
We think it is time Africa's creditors addressed themselves to the situation in the continent. They should subsequently respond by making it easier for Africa to develop its economies in the 1990S.
In other words, creditor nations and institutions should unconditionally write off Africa's huge debt. In the first place, it is unpayable. What is more, favourable action by the creditors will enable African countries to improve the performance of their economies.
Naturally, in the interdependent world we are in, an improvement in Africa's economic performance will lead to more demand for industrial goods from the developed countries. This will have a long term bearing on the economies of the latter.
There are few Western countries which have written off their debt to African countries. While hailing their move, we call on others to emulate this example.
It is not enough to just reschedule the debt. <-/Infact> this does not provide a lasting solution; for it only postpones payment. And when the payment is finally due, the accumulated interest <-_increase><+_increases> the debt figure to even more unbearable proportions
We reiterate that Africa <-_mut><+_must> not be left to tackle its debt problem on its own. Developed countries which are owed by the continent should write off the debts so that Africa too is ensured a place in the decade that has just dawned. 
Let's solve problems of farm produce
ONE of the major preoccupations of the Government at the moment is the purchase and storage of food and cash crops and finally ensuring that they are marketed.
As such, it has been working hard to consolidate the co-operative sector, on which the process hinges heavily. The thrust has been to ensure co-operatives serve farmers more efficiently to motivate them to increase production.
Indeed peasants throughout the country have responded positively to calls for increased production of food and cash crops, but have met hurdles in disposing of the produce.
The immediate snag has been the lack of sufficient cash to buy the crop, especially when this turned out to be a bumper, whereas planners had anticipated normal harvests and set aside modest amounts of cash for crop purchases.
But it is also clear that the problem goes beyond the mere act of buying from the farmer and into the other, even more involved process of marketing the crop to outlets within and outside the country.
To sustain the production drive that the farmers have exhibited, requires that the whole process to the final disposal of the produce work smoothly. A hitch at one point disturbs the whole process and demoralises the producer.
As the Prime Minister and First Vice-President, <ea/>Ndugu Joseph Warloba said in Kondoa where the problems of marketing were raised by the peasants, there is need to work harder to find solutions to avoid the negative repercussions that will arise from a neglected farm produce.
We are confident that we have competent officials in the various ministries and regions who working closely with the people, can come up with solutions to the problems affecting this vital sector of our economy.
We expect them to put their heads together to come up with solutions to enhance production, purchase and marketing.
The urgency of the need to find solutions to the problems should be viewed against the reported existence of racketeers who are taking advantage of the adversity experienced by the formers to enrich themselves.
The Prime Minister has promised stern action against such elements and also assured peasants that the surplus crop on their hands will all be bought. We will be helping the government to stamp out these evil practices, if solutions to the snags are found and quickly. 
Dar must always be clean 
THE City of Dar es Salaam, which some years back used to be an attractive place to live in, has now become an eyesore - to say the least. It is an open secret that the general cleanliness of this fast expending urban centre leaves much to be desired.
And by the look of things, the already frightening situation is bound to get out of hand if immediate steps are not taken to reverse the trend.
Keeping the city clean and orderly is clearly the basic responsibility of the City Fathers. One wonders why they have allowed the situation to deteriorate so much!
We strongly believe that if all-embracing steps are taken now, especially by involving the people fully, the situation will change for the better within a short period.
This basically calls for seriousness and determination at all levels, fully conscious that the exercise can effectively be carried out without depending heavily on money.
With proper mobilisation and guidance, the people can always be a dependable force when it comes to implementing programmes affecting their general welfare and development.
In the case of Dar es Salaam and other urban centres in the country, the people have not been called upon to participate on selfhelp basis in activities aimed at keeping their premises clean.
Apart from ensuring dustbins and other basic cleansing equipment are made available at various points in the city, the concerned authorities must also educate the people against the dangers of behaving irresponsibly both at work place and at their respective areas of residence with if view to curbing reckless disposal of refuse.
For their part, the City Fathers have all the time to remain alert and resourceful, clearly displaying exemplary behaviour and commitment of their responsibilities.
This means that the limited resources at their disposal have to be carefully used within the overall framework of ensuring that the city always remains clean and presentable.
Officials who misuse vehicles and other equipment meant for cleansing activities must be exposed and ruthlessly dealt with in accordance with the laid down procedures.
This equally applies to other urban centres in the country where the situation is similarly gloomy and disturbing.
Will the city authorities fulfil the sweet promises they gave to the high-powered Party delegation which undertook an inspection tour of the city last week?
We are all anxious to see positive results immediately. 
Provident Fund must be efficient
LIFE becomes comfortable when one knows for sure that at the end of the day one gets a good meal and a place to relax. Employees who burn out their energies in order to earn a living should not be left to suffer once they am out of employment for whatever reason.
When one is out of employment, one does not get a regular income. No salary, no medical benefits and if the reason for being out of employment is old age, then one is weak and cannot, therefore, go about searching for a means of survival. There must be something for one to bank on.
Social security schemes are meant to perform that duty. There are many types of social security schemes but the provident fund Is one that has been introduced in Zanzibar for nonpensionable employees.
The move to pass the Provident Fund Bill in the Isles has rightly been described by Members of the House of Representatives as a revolutionary one, reflecting Government intentions to help the lowly paid workers at their hour of need.
We too hail the Zanzibar House of Representatives for enacting this provident fund law, for it is Intended to help people after retirement from public service. Employees in Zanzibar should make good use of this social security facility.
Employers too should sincerely remit their employees' contributions to the Fund as required by the law. We would like to caution the Zanzibar Provident Fund Board to avoid making mistakes that might frustrate the noble goals of the Fund.
They have a vast field of such schemes on the Mainland and other countries in Africa to learn from, to ensure a smooth take-off.
Misplacement of employees (members) contributions must be avoided, because it causes delays in payment of benefits when employees leave membership, resulting in unnecessary suffering.
Also accounts of contributions must be regular, updated, as failure to do so raises members concern about their money. The Zanzibar Provident Fund should, therefore, be vigilant to ensure that their staff are honest and trustworthy so that members' contributions into the Fund are not misappropriated.
The Zanzibar Provident Fund should endeavour to make prompt payment of members' benefits when the members want them. For it is only by serving the members satisfactorily that the Fund can live up to a good name as a viable institution. 
Message to the Boers: Act now
THE racist South African regime, plus its backers abroad, view the resolution of the long-simmering crisis in that country in terms which are at variance with the perception of progressive insiders and their progressive external allies.
The regime view the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and release of the nationalist hero, Nelson Mandela, as a trump card that would help lay the apartheid ghost to rest - that the outcry against its perpetration would die off.
With apartheid "buried" - so the reasoning further goes - the rest of the world, which by and large regards Pretoria as a pariah, would embrace the Boers and relax such justifiable punitive measures as sanctions.
The Boers are grossly wrong on that score, for the unbanning of the ANC cannot be an end in itself - the move has to be followed by measures designed to facilitate speedier movement towards creation of a democratic, non-racial South Africa.
Mandela's release, similarly, cannot be expected to have heralded everlasting euphoria; and anyway, the people are not supposed to have said "thank you" to the regime for releasing someone it had wrongly jailed.
The people are conscious that apartheid remains in place, save for a few inconsequential window-dressing gestures. The consciousness transcends the theoretical - it combines the practical challenge to step up pressure on the regime to abolish apartheid laws and come to terms with ANC, which is the rallying force of the anti-apartheid crusade.
The regime is not very keen on removing blocks standing in the way of negotiations. It is not willing to lift the much-hated state of emergency, implying that the black people are responsible for its institution through factional fighting.
In terms of magnitude, violence has been bred, over several years, by police brutality - it is the halting of this and not the relatively minute factional fighting, that would clear the way for fruitful negotiations.
The regime is tight-lipped on other key conditions set by the ANC on negotiations - the return of exiles, the release of all political prisoners and an end to political prosecution. De Klerk and company must meet the conditions if it wants to be credited with sincerity in its claim to being a partner in the process to change South Africa for the better of all its people.
The pressure on the Boers is mounting, and the heat lately, is bound to come from a meeting of the Ad hoc Committee of the OAU scheduled for Lusaka today.
The message to the Boers is: Act now; time and patience are running out. 
W2E003T
Comment
Let us heed President's advice
A lot is to be learnt from the Cabinet changes effected by the President yesterday and the reminder to all of the tasks ahead to revive the economy.
Cost cutting, strict supervision of work and the fight against corruption have been outlined as the major tasks that must be tackled more consistently and vigorously to improve the economy and living standards.
It is clear then that the tasks have not changed, but sadly, they have not been implemented as resolutely as was expected in the light of the economic problems the nation still faces.
Seen against this background, the President's move has served to refocus the nation's attention on the tasks which he has so elaborately outlined in the past as the internal cornerstones to a speedy recovery of the economy.
The economy is still in bad shape, requiring each one of us to play his/her part more diligently. This includes ensuring that costs are not merely controlled, but cut back wherever possible to enhance resource utilisation.
The President pointed out a few of the areas that could be tackled. Ministries, departments and other public institutions must act on these and others.
It is indicative of the seriousness with which the President views the task, that he has set the ball rolling by scrapping a number of ministries.
To achieve positive results in reducing costs, raising efficiency and fighting corruption, strict supervision of work must be enforced at all levels and be seen to be working.
No longer must those charged with supervisory responsibilities at any level, be allowed to hide behind the misconstrued excuse that they do not want to seem to be <ea/>Wanyapara (colonial overseers) by strictly supervising those under them.
This necessary operational procedure in our drive for accountability and responsibility in every place of work, must not be confused with harassment. Indeed supervisors have been reminded not to harass those under them, but to ensure that they discharge their duties diligently.
Let us all play our part, each in his/her station of work to improve the economy.
Well done Namibia, you have made it
WE salute the people of Namibia as they celebrate their hard-won independence today. Getting to where they are has not been easy. It entailed major sacrifices.
Their long journey to independence took them through a protracted armed struggle and finally to UN-supervised elections which ranked among the most intensely contested and closely-monitored political processes in the history of Africa's decolonization.
The people of Namibia have proved to the rest of the world that they are more than ready to occupy their rightful position in international fora and take their destiny in their own hands.
The much-deserved victory of the South-West Africa People's Organization (Swapo) in the elections was itself a clear indication of the future path the people of that country wanted to <-_treat><+_tread> on. Namibians are marching towards prosperity.
But the independence of Namibia is of significance not only to the people of that country, but to the international community as well. The cause that Swapo espoused during the long struggle for independence drew not only the sympathy of the rest of Africa, but tempered the continent's determination to end domination and oppression.
Namibia's independence will afford the continent with a breathing space and the opportunity to focus its attention on the economic and social problems that afflict its people.
Africa's main pre-occupation in the decades following the independence of most countries in the continent has been the struggle for economic emancipation. With economic problems worsening as characterized both by dwindling foreign exchange reserves and mounting external debt, Africa is now in the middle of its second struggle.
One of the objectives of this economic struggle is the formation of an African Economic Community by the year 2000. Already, commendable results are seen in the form of regional economic groupings such as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) to which an independent Namibia will become a member.
The goals of this economic grouping are the development of economic co-operation among member states and promotion of collective self-reliance. SADCC countries also aim at reducing economic dependence on racist South Africa.
The isolation of the racist regime is itself another important item on the agenda of the progressive international community and remains the main focus of the liberation struggle in southern Africa today.
In celebrating Namibia's independence, we call on progressive forces to continue the economic isolation of the racists by enforcing sanctions against the South African minority regime.
World leaders are gathered in Windhoek to witness the lowering of the South African flag for the last time in Namibia. When they meet again in southern Africa in the near future, it will be inside South Africa itself, to celebrate the victory of the majority fighting against apartheid. 
Promoting science and technology
ONE of the basic criteria always used to gauge the level of development of any society are the tools and scientific ideas it uses in its various undertakings.
For in such are reflected the systematic efforts over the years by those societies to tame nature and draw from it the human needs for survival and self reproduction.
A society is considered developing when there is constant improvement of the tools and ideas it uses in its survival and reproduction, with better results.
Tanzania is still at a very low stage of development when this criteria is applied. That is why it has enacted a policy on science and technology to give a deliberate push to the application of such as a means of more rapid advancement.
The thrust has been to try to generalise the application of simple technology to ease labour on the forms, while raising the yield per given area of land.
It has also been encouraging the use of the available local resources to cut back dependence on Imported inputs in both farm and industrial process.
In other words, with a more generalised application of basic technological and scientific principles, we shall have given true meaning to the concept of self-reliance.
 We are still a long way in the struggle to have a wider application of science and technology. It can be said that the majority of the people live in a pre-scientific era, where the tools and ideas do not change to raise efficiency and productivity.
We are living in a rapidly changing world. The pace of that change has widened the gap in science and technology, between the North and South.
Indeed the situation of the South, Tanzania being one of the countries in this lot, is seen as hopeless, with many observers characterising these societies as entering the next century "barefoot" in terms of technological and scientific level of development.
The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, has unveiled its strategy in grappling with this obviously daunting task of promoting a scientific and technological culture among the people.
Besides ensuring the flow a research results to the users, it will also encourage and <-/porotect> local talent, an aspect sometimes ignored to the detriment of the society as a whole, which paid to educate such talented people.
It is also true that monitoring of the importation Of technology is necessary to reverse the trend of overdependence noted in this area.
We count on systematic implementation of these strategies to keep the society on course in its struggle for self-reliance, whose main plank is a scientific and technological culture. 
African Human Rights Day
TODAY, African countries mark the Africa Day of Human and People's Rights. On this day, they look back and reflect on what they have done individually and collectively to promote human rights on the continent.
The adoption of the African Charter on Human Rights 10 years ago and the eventual ratification of it five years later are both milestones in the African history, showing clearly the continent's commitment in this area.
The African Charter is considered to be the most explicit of all international or regional human rights treaties in obliging states to ensure "through teaching, education and publication" that people are made aware of their rights.
Forty-one countries have so far ratified the charter; and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has appealed to the remaining ones to do so without further delay.
Considering the fundamental importance of the issue, it is our expectation that the OAU will continue to press those yet to ratify the charter, until they join the others.
The crusade of human rights should not be solely seen and passed in terms of the current publicity designed to show that the continent cares little for human rights. No doubt abuses exist.
But Africa's crusade for human rights goes deeper and further back in history and is more comprehensive It is the whole history of the struggle to liberate the continent from external domination, whereby its people were exploited and denied their fundamental rights for centuries.
Marking a close of that chapter are the people of South Africa, long denied their fundamental rights, who have intensified the struggle to rid themselves of the system that denied them those rights.
They need all the support that can be marshalled on the continent and the world at large to ensure that they win their struggle.
The African charter on Human Rights in this context assumes greater importance in carrying on the task that has kept the continent busy for several centuries now, if resistance to slavery is taken into account.
There is need for the Commission on Human and People's Rights to set up a working network that will ensure the charter is followed and that human rights violations are reported for appropriate sanctions to be taken. That is the challenge for all Africa.
Making OTTU a powerful machine
WORKERS constitute the principal collective partner of peasants in the combined force of nation-builders.
It is only logical, then, that these key participants in the task of nation-building should be adequately motivated and their interests addresses.
This tunes them morally to exert maximum efforts in the task and translates into smooth and effective nation-building process.
Harmonious labour relations - embracing rank-and-file workers and management teams - also constitute a vital ingredient to that end.
Tension, unfortunately, characterises many workplaces stemming from real or perceived feelings by workers, that managers suppress them; and managers taking workers for trouble-makers.
This has given rise to an unhealthy situation of mutual tolerance and labour disputes in worse cases. Ultimately, it is productivity which is compromised.
Worker interest branches - operating under the umbrella of Juwata  were designed to act as shields against ant-worker tendencies as well as serve as vehicles for speeding up productivity.
Juwata has been trying its best on those scores; examples abound of many victimised workers who have regained their jobs or acquired certain rights in the wake of Juwata intervention; plus those of managers who have shelved negative plans or intentions for fear of incurring Juwata's wrath. But the affiliation of Juwata to CCM, was deemed to have inhibited the workers organisation somewhat.
Workers are thus pinning big hopes on the Organisation of Tanzania Trade Unions (OTTU) which is gradually taking shape, to turn Juwata's good achievements full circle.
The sentiments of Dar es Salaam's OTTU leaders on the need for charting more effective strategies to uphold workers' rights and guaranteeing job security provide a basis for setting the process into motion.
The sentiments, voiced at a recent seminar should be backed by action, towards making OTTU a powerful workers' umbrella organ. 
Let us heed ILO warning on workers 
REVELATIONS made by International Labor Organisation (ILO) report that millions of Tanzanians face serious safety and health problems in the informal sector are shocking, to say the least.
The ILO report, prepared in the country recently, states in clear terms that the lives of more than two million people in this sector are at great risk because of a multitude of work hazards which can easily be controlled if the relevant authorities take necessary measures.
The report lists the hazards, among others, as exposures to toxic materials like gases, high risk of infecting diseases through viruses, bacteria and parasites, and mechanical hazards which can easily cause accidents.
W2E004T
Opinion
Youth Council most welcome 
AT LAST, the Government has announced plans to establish a National Youth Development Council which will be charged with the all-important task of planning and running youth development activities in the country.
The plans were announced in Dar es Salaam on Thursday by the Minister for Labour, and Youth Development, <ea/>Ndugu Ahmed Hassan Diria, who said the setting up of the Council will be effected soon after the next budget <-/seasion> which begins next month.
The Government move is a most welcome step in the right direction in tapping the huge potential of our energetic youth for the development of the country.
It is also a timely move in starting to tackle the growing youth problems, especially those of economic nature, which if left unattended, threaten to undermine the stability of this nation.
It is an undisputed truth that the youths are the backbone of any society, being as they are the most energetic and dependable force in production, innovation and in propagating the values of that society in all aspects of life.
That is why any society which aspires to develop rapidly must ensure its youths are fully and most productively deployed.
We need not mention all the evil consequences of leaving the youths to idle and loiter aimlessly in any society. They easily fall into vices such as drug abuse, alcoholism and inevitable thefts all of which are socially destabilising in any society.
The old adage that "an idle mind soon becomes the devil's workshop" remains valid, especially where the aspirations of the youths are not fulfilled by the society.
It is our hope that the plans will be carefully worked out so that they embrace all the youths and in turn reflect their needs.
Indeed, success lies in conceptualising the youths as a huge force ready to be tapped for increased prosperity of the nation.  Let us discard the told notion where the youths have been depicted as a problem for which a solution has to be found and literally "imposed" on them.
They are in themselves a solution to their many problems if properly organised. This is what the proposed Council should aim at. 
Protect peasants from unscrupulous traders
THE general misgivings about the decision to allow private traders to buy cash crops from the peasants have been reinforced by what is happening in some parts of the country.
Members of Parliament, some of whom have seriously doubted the government move to liberalise crop buying since it was introduced last year, have started coming up with "concrete evidence" to show that the decision was a non-starter.
Debating estimates of the Ministry of Home Affairs in the National Assembly in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday, for example, the MP for Mtama in Lindi, <ea/>Ndugu Masoud Chitende, accused the private traders of stealing from, and exploiting, the peasants in Lindi and Mtwara regions.
The MP pointed out that the private businessmen in the two regions were now victimising helpless cashew growers by buying their crop at a lower price of 125/- per kilogramme instead of 145/-.
Without delving into the good reasons which led the Government to liberalise crop buying in the country, we would like to stress the fact that when announcing the decision, the Government promised to establish a mechanism which would ensure a fair deal for the peasants.
But what is happening to the cashew growers in Mtwara and Lindi, may rightly be taken to mean that the Government is yet to institute the promised mechanism in defence of the peasants' economic interests.
Knowing what human nature is, the consequences of leaving the helpless peasants to the whims of private businessmen whose major motive may be the making of huge profits as quickly as possible, are, to say the least, frightening to contemplate.
This lack of "protection" to the peasants will certainly adversely affect their well-being in many ways which we need not mention here.
In the current world of political pluralism, trade liberalisation and other socioeconomic changes are most welcome. But these must be implemented with great consideration for the betterment of the people's lives at large.
The promised mechanism to defend the peasants who, in all senses, are the backbone of this nation's economy is long overdue. It must be instituted urgently for the good of us all. 
Let people plan their own development
WE focus our attention on the Kibiti-Lindi road whose construction process has been described by Works Minister, Nalaila Kiula, as "satisfactory and very encouraging."
This heartening observation clearly underscores the determination and willingness of those involved in the execution of this crucial project to get things done within the scheduled period of two years.
Realisation of this goal is naturally eagerly being awaited by the residents of Lindi and Mtwara regions who since " time immemorial" have never experienced a smooth transportation system.
Indeed, completion of the road is bound to open up opportunities for social as well as economic development in the entire zone.
For as we all do realise, the road passes through areas which boast of vast potential in agriculture, fisheries and industrial production, especially in cashew growing districts.
The challenge facing the people in the said areas is for them to start getting down to serious business by ensuring increased production in agriculture and all other key areas with a view to improving their standard of living.
Both Lindi and Mtwara regions are the country's  leading producers of cashewnuts, a crop which currently is better placed in the world market.
The unfortunate thing is that cashewnut production has drastically gone down to deplorable levels in recent years due mainly to lack of proper care of cashew plantations and poor crop husbandry.
Certainly every possible measure has to be taken so that the negative trend is quickly reversed for the benefit of the people and nation as a whole.
We are confident that completion of the road project will serve as an added impetus to the people's burning desire to liberate themselves from the current economic hardships they are facing.
Let the people plan and work for their development in the true spirit of self-reliance and collective use of our scarce resources. 
Noteworthy praise from UNDP
SINCE Tanzania attained her independence nearly 32 years ago, her development strategy has always been man centred, recognising the people as both the means and the end of the desired socio-economic progress of the nation.
If this was not clear at the beginning, the promulgation of the Arusha Declaration in 1967 - which incidentally came during the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development - made the country's stand quite plain on the issue of people's development.
The man-centred development strategy - thanks to the foresight of our leaders, especially the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere - emphasises the obvious truth that for any country to achieve meaningful socio-economic advancement, people must take the centre stage, fully participating in the country's development planning.
This means that instead of concentrating on the development of objects, all development efforts should be directed towards the physical improvement of the people's living conditions.
This noble objective can be achieved only if the people are fully involved in the planning and implementation of their development projects.
But for the people to be able to fully participate in their own development activities, they must be prepared and equipment for that important objective.
This goal can be reached only if timely and appropriate investment is made in people-oriented fields such as education, health and the general development of human capabilities so that people can work productively and creatively.
This approach obviously means equitable distribution of national resources for the benefit of all the people in the country, something which Tanzania has been practising since the attainment of nationhood.
We are thus greatly encouraged by the sincere observation made by the United Nations Development programme (UNDP} that Tanzania is one of the few countries which have done well in utilising their incomes ,or the improvement of the people's lives.
In its <-/fourth> annual report titled Human Development Report, the non-partisan UN agency praised Tanzania for this achievement, saying that the country ranked 172 in the Gross National Product (GNP) yardstick, and ranked 138 in the more realistic Human Development Index (HDl) yardstick.
Observations like that of the UNDP should serve as great encouragement to all Tanzanians to strive to do better in their long safari towards achieving meaningful progress. It can be done if all of us play our part. 
Burundi needs immediate help
THE situation in Burundi, after the failed coup, remains confusing, calling for a speedy response from Africa and the international community, to stop the escalating violence. Reports coming out of the country show that tribal killings have continued in the countryside, and that the restored government of Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi does not have the means to stop it.
Refugees have continued to stream out of the unfortunate country in their thousands and they tell of more dead in the violence in the villages.
The peasants are helpless before the armed soldiers who have continued to kill at will and out of the historically instilled hatred and fear. 
It is this worrying situation which brought together the three neighbours of Burundi, namely Tanzania, Zaire and Rwanda to see how best they could quickly arrest the situation and restore normalcy to the country.
They have offered to immediately send troops to help the Burundi government stop the tribal violence and killings and to restore trust and security to the country.
In the present crisis, it is important that their gesture is fully and quickly backed by Africa and the international community, by helping them to mobilise rapidly for the task.
We say so, aware that the violence is escalating and that there are still military units resisting to restore government and continuing killings. 
Every hour delay in responding to the crisis, adds to the number of innocent victims in that unfortunate country and erodes further any confidence there may be to a return of peace and security.
The cost of rebuilding the country and confidence among the people also entails restoring harmony between the people of the two tribes, and it is by no means a short-term exercise. 
Introduce patrols on the 'killer highway' 
YET another fatal accident on our roads. This time, five innocent lives cut short and 38 others injured, some beyond hope of ever again being as fit as before the chilling incident. It is indeed a national tragedy, when a number of its able-bodied citizens, are suddenly made to face the grim prospects of living the rest of their lives as disabled people. Yet, this is the chilling reality that awaits the surviving victims or the accident which occurred at Maseyu-Mikese area, 45 kilometres east of Morogoro on Thursday, involving a passenger bus and a lorry. The tragedy leaves many a family agonising; for some will have suffered irreplaceable loss of those nearest and dearest to them while others now face a life-long burden of caring for the disabled. We extend <-/condelences> to the bereaved and wish the survivors speedy <-/recorvery>.We are concerned, however, that Morogoro Road, among other highways, is taking on the infamous mantle of the "killer highway", going by the number of fatal accidents that are regularly recorded on it, especially on the stretch between Dar es Salaam and Morogoro itself. We have before, in this column, suggested measures to make the highway - certainly one of the busiest in the country - safer for the many users, but only some aspects have been taken up. It is well known that many of the motorists, when they are on the highway, feel that they are beyond the eyes of the law and thus flout the Highway Code at will. The result is the rising carnage and a public concern that little seems to be done to bring sanity on our roads. Traffic police must heed the increasing public concern over the behaviour of motorists on these roads and institute patrols on them to safeguard passenger lives and, of course those of the offenders. 
W2E005T
Veterinary drugs must be released
IN this issue we carry a story which says the Customs and Sales Tax department of the Ministry of Finance, which is The Treasury, is holding veterinary drugs which were imported in the country purely for government use.
There is no doubt that the government needs finances to run its affairs. But two aspects figure out prominently from the facts of the story.
One point is the issue of budgeting. The only reason there is a budget is to ensure that every expenditure is taken care of. In Tanzania, just as is the case with all other countries, ministries get their finances from the Treasury.
What happened in this case? Did the Ministry of Agriculture refuse to return to The Treasury, through the Customs Department, 9.6m/- it had been given with which to pay for import duty of the drugs?
Even if this money were budgeted, what is the logic of taking 100/- from one of your pockets, depositing it in the other, and thereafter feel comfortable that you have 200/-, on you?
Point two is why do we pay so much money to keep our parliament in session for more than one month to pass a budget whose provisions get flouted the moment the session is over?
In this case, why did the Ministry for Finance not tell the Members of Parliament that he intended to charge import duty on veterinary drugs and see if his motion could get parliamentary approval?
We say that if the Treasury could not have turned round and issued Government Notice No. 234 of August, 1992, introducing a tax which was not tabled in Parliament, the Ministry of Agriculture could not have found itself in such an embarrassing situation where the government sort of cheated a private importer who offered to buy the drugs with his own forex and finally found himself grilled between two government departments.
The drugs must be released, and the Treasury should give this tax exemption to the Ministry of Agriculture. For after all, where would the Ministry of Agriculture get the money from, if it is not from the Treasury itself?
Finally could this introduced Harmonised Code on taxing the antibiotics have a bearing on the disharmony in our hospital services? For, what this would mean is that all hospitals would find themselves with 20 per cent funds less for buying the designated drugs?
The government should not practise self-destruction.
Revisit the E.A. Royal Commission
THIS and next week we carry special supplements on agriculture. Of all the sectors in the economy none has been praised as much yet it has suffered more abuse than any other.
Our farmers have been lauded as the foundation of our economy yet they have been treated like dirt. The government, crop authorities and cooperatives have all taken their cut from the prices of farm produce.
Village councils and local party functionaries have demanded their share. Roads, hospitals, education, religion, local <ea/>waganga, all demand fees from the farmer. This makes the farmer truly the backbone of our society. And what does he get in return?
Since independence, the Tanzanian farmer has been left in the doldrums, like a sailing ship caught in the calms without wind. The government has tried a variety of policies without success.
In the early 1960s we tried a resettlement scheme. It become a failure. We tried to expand the co-operative movement with little success. We came out with <ea_><ea/> and this become a failure as well. Then we tried the villagisation programme on a massive scale. This become a monumental failure.
Most recently the government came out with a new land tenure law which in legal terms expropriated the farmers on massive scale and put their land in the hands of village councils. This far from doing to the farmers has put the virtually all the land owned by the farmers at risk of ending up in the hands of unscrupulous elements.
What all these show more than anything else is complete failure on the interests of our farmers at the same time a policy which is conducive to rapid agriculture development
This failure has its roots in the late 1950s when the then TANU leadership rejected the recommendations of the East African Commission. This commission carried out a deep analysis of the problems of agriculture development in East Africa and proposed appropriate solutions.
The commission made two basic recommendations, First, a revamping of customary tenure and replacing it with individual tenure. On this basis the natives would transform their customary tenure into freehold while others could hold land on 99-year leases. Irrevocable title deeds would be issued to the freeholders and the leasehold regulations would follow the normal practice in the United Kingdom.
Second, it recommended the consolidation of the land fragments of our farmers which act as a major hindrance to improved management, mechanisation and productivity in agriculture. A lot of studying and introspection went into these recommendations.
They showed a deep understanding of the problem of agricultural development in East Africa and drew on the rich agrarian history of Western Europe. In one word the commission recommended a path of development that would in time make our agriculture as productive as that of Western Europe.
Yet for the past 30 years  we have been groping in the dark searching for light where there <-_in><+_is> none and avoiding the light that is there. The time has come for Tanzania to revisit the EA Royal Commission Report and start implementing its recommendations. This is rather belated but at least we should not waste more time on fantastic experiments. 
Hon. Shija and Freedom of the Press 
MINISTER for Information, William Shija, has dropped another bombshell: Anyone who writes for the press must be licensed by him: else he or she goes to jail. In other words, Tanzanians will need a licence to speak!
Even for a person famous for putting his foot in his mouth, this is really going too far! How long will the country continue to tolerate this?
Only last year the Government announced (without song or fanfare) that at long last the country was going to democratise and on July 1, 1992, multi-partism was ushered in with excitement and high hopes.
The two fundamentals of democracy are freedom of speech and freedom of association. We shall not talk about the shortcomings of the freedom of association in Tanzania today even though the subject needs to be addressed in extenso and in depth.
Freedom of speech means freedom of all say and write pretty much what they want. It is expressed through a free and independent media, that is a media that is independent of the government and unmuzzled by the government.
But Minister Shija does not believe in this. He obviously believes in government control and in a muzzled press. He has already closed down two newspapers. He wants to establish a press council whose real function will be to undermine freedom of the press. 
He is frustrating efforts to start up independent TV and radio stations in the country. He has been sitting on numerous applications for new newspapers and old ones that want to come out more frequently.
Minister Shija admits that he is an admirer of the North Korean Communist system and threatens to send journalists there to learn how to be submissive to political leaders!
Can people like Shija contribute anything good to the democratic process? Undoubtedly no! To give such people the management of a ministry as central to the democratic process as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is to bring to question the seriousness of the government's declared intentions to see the country fully democratise.
 To democratise it is not enough for the government to declare intentions to do so or even to allow a number of newspapers and a number of political parties to operate. It is essential that the democratisation process be managed by people who understand and believe in the fundamental principles of democracy. Otherwise, we are not serious. 
The lynch mob!
WE often hear of the lynching of suspected thieves in Dar es Salaam and other towns in the country. Some people feel elated that another bandit bites the dust or that the thief got what he deserved; in any case that society has one less thief. At any rate there is a feeling or justification of the lynching act and generally nothing is done after that event.
True, society hates thieves. In fact our society seems to hate thieves more than rapists and murderers. Not that they should be lynched as well. God forbid! We accept the principle that the job of punishing rapists and murderers falls on the state but we do not seem to do the same for thieves.
A few weeks ago there was the well publicised lynching of suspected armed robbers in a stolen vehicle at Kinondoni. Three robbers were lynched, the vehicle smashed in and the loot, put between 3 and 5 million shillings, disappeared. The fact that the suspects carried a gun and fired it did not save their heads from being bashed in. The mob braved the suspects and risked their own lives. For what? the loot may be a clue.
Dar es Salaam pick pockets risk their lives for the possibility of stealing a few shillings. The Kinondoni lynch mob risked their for the possibility of grabbing a piece of the 3 to 5 million shillings loot. Who is better, the suspected thief or the thieving mob?
Thieving or not, the mob has murder on its mind and generally commits it. Then it, like the 3 to 5 million shillings melts into thin air. Apparently, once the mob disperses, there is no murderer as the murderer to be the mob rather than the individuals with identifiable faces.
There have been cases of members of the mob being pick-pocketed while lynching a suspected thief or stores being looted during the melee. One cannot therefore claim that the mob is motivated by superior moral standards.
Let us be clean about it. Lynching is against the law and is in fact a criminal act of the most serious nature. Those who lynch are subject to prosecution on murder charges and if found guilty could themselves face the hangman. The question is why the public is prone to lynching and what, if anything, should be done to end it.
Amnesty International has noted with concern the violation of human rights involved with lynching in Tanzania. Obviously there have been innocent victims of lynching. The late Musa Membar is reported to have been threatened with the lynch mob by State Security before he died under suspicious circumstances. In any case anyone who shouts thief knowing very well the consequences is clearly committing murder.
In the US for quite sometime suspected thieves were lynched by the mob. This was a time when law enforcement was not well established. Lynching therefore filled the gap in law enforcement as well as took advantage of it. When society cannot count on the state to dispense justice the mob tends to take matters into their own hands. This is both intolerable as well as contrary to civilised behaviour. 
The people come first
THE mass media, within Tanzania and without, are watching closely government's follow up of last Saturday's interrogation of the publisher of The Express and <ea/>Mwananchi newspapers and the editor of The Express.
The media are doing so because they feel that the Government's action last Saturday was totally against the freedom of expression which is stipulated in Tanzania's Constitution and the United Nations Bill of Rights.
The freedom of expression is a prerequisite to democracy because without this freedom democracy does not make sense. How can people freely choose their leader? How free can they be without information?
How can people know that those they have chosen are serving their best interests? After all those chosen to lead should be accountable to those who chose them.
This accountability can only make sense if whatever good or bad the leaders do gets back to the electorate - as objective information or comment.
W2E006T
Fair elections or fair process? 
VARIOUS government and <ea/>Chama <ea/>Cha <ea/>Mapinduzi (CCM) leaders have been assuring the opposition parties and <-_te><+_the> world at large that the coming elections will be free and fair. That is no guarantee of course that the coming elections will indeed be free and fair. But that is not the main problem of democracy.
For sure elections have to be free and fair. Nobody can argue with that. But for democracy to be genuine and not sham, not only the elections but also the process leading to those elections must be free and fair.
Perhaps those who are putting emphasis on the freedom and fairness of the coming elections are doing so because they want to distract attention from the fact that the process leading to those elections is not free and fair. Let us look at how the dice is loaded against the opposition:
First the regulations for registration of political parties leave very little room for fundamental policy differences with CCM. Policies must be "agreeable" to CCM in order for the political party to be fully registered.
Second, these regulations straight-jacket the opposition and allow little room for growth and development. For example, it is next to impossible to form political alliances, merge or break up, change your leadership or even some of your members or your constitution without having to start the registration process afresh.
Third, the Registrar of Political Parties, Liundi, has declared himself a CCM cadre and therefor he is not serving the interest of democracy but those of CCM.
Fourth, the electoral commission has been set up solely by CCM. Experience shows that if the electoral commissions is under the control of the government it will try to favour ruling party candidates. Nigeria is a living example.
Fifth, the regulations governing the organisation and conduct of political meetings is heavily loaded against the opposition and in favour of CCM. Permits have to be sought from CCM cadres - in the guise of government officials - to organise meetings and these government officials, from <ea_>Katibu Katas<ea/> to Regional Commissioners, are constantly subverting the efforts of the opposition to organise meetings, open branches and recruit members.
Sixth, demonstrations organised by the opposition are virtually considered treasonable  while CCM organises and conducts political rallies, demonstrations, fund-raising <-/compaigns>, marches and walks without let or hindrance.
Seventh, the 40 anti-democratic laws are still on the books threatening both individual members of the opposition and the opposition parties themselves with drastic actions under any pretext.
Eighth, the government, either directly or indirectly makes millions of shillings available to CCM using various means. For example, recently the government gave SUKITA, a CCM enterprise, more than 500 million shillings in tax exemptions. This money is obviously available for CCM use.
The government gives tax exemptions to businessmen so that they may contribute to CCM and directly uses government resource for CCM work. There are many other ways that the government is using to divert national resources to CCM use while the opposition is starved of resources.
Ninth, the government continues to frustrate efforts to start independent radio and TV stations as well as daily newspapers. At the same time it has continued to monopolise Radio Tanzania as well as The Daily News, both financed by tax payers' money. as virtually exclusive CCM organs.
Tenth, the regulations are bent in favour of political parties which are subservient to CCM while they are enforced to the extreme against those who constitute a real challenge to CCM.
Clearly elections can be free and fair and international observers can come in on the election day and bear witness that the 12 hours of the election were not marred by lack of freedom and fairness. But the process leading up to those elections may not have been free at all.
It is obvious that for democracy to be genuine, not only must elections be free and fair but, more important, the process leading up to and beyond the elections must also be free and fair. The institutions, the laws and regulations, and the practices of government officials tasked with overseeing the democratic process must be free and fair, not only during the election itself but at all times: before, during and after the elections.
Govt. needs order as well
DAR ES SALAAM vendors have vowed to come out in full force to deal with what they have expressed as any official action that would work against their well-being.
This is a bad note sounded not only to those in power but to the whole country, considering that whatever is decided in the metropolis quickly goes to the 'suburbs' which in this case could mean as far as Nachingwea, Monduli and Mutukula.
The central government, ruling <ea/>Chama <ea/>Cha <ea/>Mapinduzi and regional administration should quickly come together, and this time seriously, take a closer look into youth unemployment. That is the point at issue.
In Tanzania it is on record that about 700,000 youths of different levels of education join the unemployed every year. These are from primary school to university education levels. This is not something a country would laugh away.
It is from these youths that we see those hawking commodities on the streets of Dar es Salaam and other townships. It is from the magnitude of their numbers that authorities in Dar es Salaam came to the extent of equating them with some kind of garbage. This rightly offended them.
But as much as the city cleanliness is the duty of every citizen, the laws of the land define those who should take leadership positions. In the case of Dar es Salaam it is the City Council. City fathers have laws to go by. They have the machinery to enforce them. They have the judiciary to try those whom they think have transgressed the laws.
So it is unbecoming of any other leader to take city fathers by their horns and teach them what to do. This creates unnecessary problems. One simple example, just a little bit detached from the vendor issue, took place in Dar es Salaam last week.
When the Canadian High Commissioner to Tanzania presented equipment to the Dar es Salaam City Council, for keeping the city clean why did the Regional Commissioner take up the task of receiving the equipment? What is the role of the Mayor? Such are aspects of City affairs, however light, which are bound to have effects on the running of municipal affairs.
There is no way order can be forced on vendors when those who are supposed to enforce it are disorderly themselves. 
Let's take full responsibility 
NEW YEAR is a time for making resolutions and we think it would do us and the country a great deal of good if all of us resolved to take full responsibility for our actions and lives this 1994.
Over many years we developed the culture of collective responsibility or "passing the buck" to some one else. The government tried to be responsible for our health, our education, our food, our incomes, our lives. The approach has failed miserably.
We talked of self-reliance and ended up more dependent than ever. We tried to blame others for our failures - the World Bank, international trade, the weather, economic saboteurs - but all our problems remained and indeed became worse.
True, opportunities for self-advancement were restricted then and the government kept treating the people as if we were a homogenous mass of individuals with the same ability and capability.
Things have changed and opportunities for self advancement have increased substantially. Tanzanians should therefore take advantage of the change and make the best out of these opportunities. If you succeed give yourself credit and it you fail blame none but yourself.
We should also take responsibility for the larger things in life- the environment, the government, the nation. If we see something wrong we should try to correct it or report it to the proper authorities for appropriate action.
It is our individual responsibility to fight corruption and crime by exposing them or reporting suspected corruption or illegal practices to the appropriate authorities or institutions for action.
This 1994 let us all resolve to take full responsibility for our lives as well as cultivate a greater sense of responsibility for our nation.
We again wish all our readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year. 
Whose ambassador is it? 
AMBASSADOR Nyakyi was reportedly recalled from New York for welcoming CHADEMA Chairman, Edwin Mtei, to the embassy. Ambassador Nyakyi is a seasoned diplomat with a record of outstanding service to the country. Yet he has been recalled rather unceremoniously for doing exactly what an ambassador is supposed to do; that is representing his country abroad.
We ask, what in the world would prompt anyone in his senses to suggest to the President that it is not proper for the ambassador to invite any Tanzanian, much less a prominent Tanzanian like Mtei, to his embassy?
Does the ambassador not represent the country and all its people? or does he represent only CCM and its members? If the latter then it must be a first in the world because all embassies represent their countries and not the governing political party.
If anything, this attitude shows that the government still has not understood the principles of democracy or does not fully support the democratisation process in Tanzania.
Tanzanian citizens of all political hues travel abroad and often they may need help of their embassies to solve their problems. Passports may expire or be lost while they are abroad, or they may be in some other difficulty. It is obviously the duty of the embassy to help them without regard to the political party they may belong to. An ambassador represents all the citizens of his country and has the duty to serve them all without discrimination.
Our government leaders have to show in deeds, not just in words, that they are for <-/multi-partism> and that different political parties mean only that there are different ideas about how to govern this country and not that people who differ with CCM are less of citizens or have less rights than CCM members.
There have been reports of other actions taken by the government showing that its attitude towards members of the new parties is not proper in a democratic society. For example, leaders of the new parties have been removed from a number of positions to which they had been appointed by government.
While we appreciate that there are some hard-headed Tanzanians who have not come to terms with the political changes that are taking place in the country, government leaders should at least be conversant with the functions of diplomats abroad so that obvious blunders like this one should have been avoided. At any rate we hope that it will not happen again and ambassador Nyakyi's recall should be withdrawn. 
Local government review: Yes but
MINISTER responsible for local government, Anna Abdallah, has indicated the Government's intention to review the local government structure. The said intention is to enable local government to improve its service delivery to its constituents.
Both the intention and timing of the review are right. In fact a restructuring of the local government has been overdue since 1962 when the first steps to <-/dedemocratise> local government were taken.
It is a self evident truism that without democratic local government there cannot be democracy at the national level. If Minister Abdallah's intended restructuring will restore true democracy in the local government system it would be an appropriate and welcome move. But will it?
The problem of democracy in Tanzania has been and continues to be the desire of the Government to hoard as much power as it can get away with and to allow the electorate as little power as possible. This has resulted in government which is unaccountable to the voters and therefore minimally responsive to the wishes and interests of the electorate.
A fundamental government reform will give back the local government to the people and make the people the real masters of their government.
W2E007T
Welcome Press Council
Family Mirror applauds the announcement by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, <ea/>Ndugu Benjamin Mkapa, to establish a Press Council, "whose role will be to safeguard the freedom of the press and promote professional ethics in mass media institutions." From now on the public will have a body to which it can voice its complaints about the media. The Council will encourage "accurate, impartial and thorough coverage of news" and improve "professional standards."
In presenting his Ministry's budget to Parliament the Minister also warned that he would "now closely monitor operations of privately owned newspapers, saying some of them were flagrantly contravening professional ethics." He signalled his intention to "control those bent at promoting <-/perjorative> publicity, mud smearing campaigns and insults in a manner that jeopardizes national interests". The Minister pointed out that freedom extended to the press must go along with responsibility, ethics, and accountability." Irresponsible coverage of scandals, insults and subversive language threatened national unity."
Safeguarding the freedom and ethical standards of the press is a role for the Minister of Information and Broadcasting to play. Unfortunately, there are still conservative elements in the party and government who would like to throttle the private press simply because of its sometimes accurate, impartial and thorough coverage of national events.
For example, when Family Mirror published its famous "Open Letter to the President" last year, the then Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ahmed Hassan Diria, called it "irresponsible and unprofessional". We felt obliged to point out that if <ea/>Mwalimu Nyerere was publicly critical of CCM's shortcomings, and both <ea/>Mwalimu and President Mwinyi were encouraging the free press to talk openly and frankly about current events, we wondered on whose behalf Ambassador Diria was calling us "irresponsible and unprofessional".
Subsequently we also felt obliged to decry the inaccurate and biased coverage of the crisis on the Hill by both the official press and radio. Our charges were later substantiated by the Mrosso Commission's Report, which has never been officially published or mentioned in the state-controlled media because it is highly critical of the role of the state in the events of last March-April. Had there been a Press Council at the time, no doubt the University's students and staff bodies would have lodged complaints against both Shihata and Radio Tanzania for their state-sponsored mud smearing campaign and insults against them.
Another complaint which the future Press Council could handle came from Member of Parliament Guntram Itatiro (Mahenge), who, in discussing the Minister's budget speech, wanted to know why the private press is never mentioned in Radio Tanzania's daily review of the national press. Do <ea/>Fahari, Business Times and  Family Mirror never have a single article to compare in interest, content, accuracy and professionalism with the daily output of <ea/>Uhuru and the Daily News?
Such points underline the pressing need to improve professional ethics in the media, particularly in the official press and radio, which for long have been obliged to sing the praises of the ruling class, no matter how incompetent, corrupt, or incoherent its behaviour.
The fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe led to a fantastic flowering of the media, both official and unofficial. We look forward to the day when the "official" press will not be forced to distort the truth in order to protect the state against "the fourth estate", whose sacred mission it is to report and comment freely on the conduct of public events without fear of state reprisal.
The Minister is surely also right to criticise the private press for "contravening professional ethics" by indulging in the mud smearing campaigns and insults, and promoting <-/perjorative> publicity. As regards the irresponsible coverage of scandals mentioned by the Minister, it is clear that the press has been found wanting in not naming those involved in the recent gold and currency smuggling case revealed by Minister of Home Affairs, Augustine Mrema. Failure to name the culprits, while hinting that they may be "big shots" (<ea/>vigogo) in the party and government, is tantamount to "trial by newspaper". How can those implicated defend themselves if the press refuses to name them? Unfortunately, we too have been guilty of this shortcoming, as have other private newspapers, not to mention the official press and radio. With the support and protection of the Press Council, this sort of unprofessional behaviour should soon become a thing of the past.
Kenya's Executive magazine of July 1991 contained an article praising Tanzania's lively new free press, which it says is permitted to discuss events "very freely indeed" by African standards. The new "<-/opennes>" of the Tanzanian government in allowing free discussion of events "has been attributed, in large part, to the benign influence of the genial Information Minister, Mr Ben Mkapa, who, as Foreign Minister for many years, presumably grew accustomed to this kind of thing, elsewhere in the world," the Executive concluded (p 18).
We pledge our full support to the Minister in his coming struggle to uphold the banner of the press freedom - especially as regards freeing the official media from state control - and, of course, to increase the professionalism of the private sector.
Solution to official fraud
The Zanzibar seminar on official fraud and embezzlement reported elsewhere in this issue put official corruption where it belongs, namely at the very centre of our political culture. From the seminar we can draw the following conclusions.
- Systematic fraud and embezzlement are universally practised in the public and co-operative sectors. There are no known exceptions to this rule;
- Systematic fraud and embezzlement are on the increase in the public sector;
- They are not controlled or controllable by the present accounting and auditing arrangement or legal procedures in place in the country
- They are condoned by the state. The companies and corporations bankrupted by fraud and embezzlement continue to receive bank "loans" (actually mostly bank grants) which are <-/undewritten> by the state. General <-_Manager><+_Managers> of parastatals and co-operatives are vetted by CCM and appointed by the President, and their Boards of Directors consist of senior state functionaries and politicians, to whom managers are solely accountable. Fraud and embezzlement in these organisations are thus passively condoned when not actively promoted by senior Party and government officials.
No administrative solutions. 
What can we do about public fraud and embezzlement?
Some participants in the Zanzibar seminar advocated stricter controls, tightening up internal and external accounting procedures, more supervision, etc. But who supervises the supervisor?
It is fiction that routine or more Mrema-like policing will eliminate theft and embezzlement, when the whole rationale behind the system is the private appropriation of public goods. Getting rid of people - individuals - will not, as any intelligent person knows, solve the problem of institutionalised theft and corruption. Mrema may actually encourage more theft and corruption. Mrema may actually encourage more theft among those who, fearing that it may be their turn next, grab every shilling they can while the going is good. "<ea_><ea/>", meaning" prepare for your retirement."
Other participants saw the solution in paying managers and accountants, etc. more; they cannot live in their salaries, therefore they steal. While it is true that present salaries do not generally provide adequate incentives, simply increasing salaries in the absence of more radical reforms would not begin to solve the problem. In any case, the present incomes of the big embezzlers are many times the salaries they could ever hope to earn legally. And anyway many of our parastatal and co-operative managers are not capable of running a market stall, let alone a public corporation. Their present legal privileges are usually more than their performance justifies.
All the above solutions to the problem of fraud and embezzlement are simply wishful thinking.
There are three interrelated solutions to the problem.
- We must close down those many commercial public corporations which are of no economic value;
- Where possible, we must expose the remaining public corporations to effective competition in the marketplace, so that they will have to reform or die;
- We must create a democratic and pluralistic society based on the separation of powers and the rule of law. These are all huge and daunting tasks.
Put an end to the plunder 
It is not news that most public <-/corporaitons> are simply <-/parastitic> monopolies, whose bosses and boards of directors use their political protection to accumulate wealth, passing on their mountainous debt to the public. For example, the public interest is not in the least bit served by the continued existence of any of the state holding companies, e.g. NDC, NCI, BIT, BET, SUDECO, NSC, NDL, SMC, TKAI, NHC, etc.. They should be summarily closed down and their property sold to pay off their debts. The same is true for most of the industrial parastatal companies. This is anyway official/World Bank policy.
But since political power lies in the hands of those who have most to lose as a result of such exercise, it is most unlikely to happen. Party and government <-/bossess> spend their time praising and protecting utterly bankrupt public institutions.
Competition
In theory, economic liberalisation is supposed to have improved the efficiency and performance of state industries by exposing them to healthy competition. In practice, the state has continued to protect them from such competition. Raw materials and finished goods provided by donors under import support arrangements have often been channelled to public companies more or less free of charge. Collectively, these companies owe billions of shillings in unpaid import duties and sales tax and Treasury counterpart funds accumulated during the ERP1/2 period.
Parastatals, marketing boards and co-operative unions have also virtually monopolised bank credit at the expense of the private sector. More billions are tied up in bank loans and overdrafts which will never ever be paid back, lies to the contrary in the official press notwithstanding.
Again, it is official/World Bank policy to put an end to this suicidal financial haemorrhage. And again it is unlikely to happen since political power lies in the hands of those who have most to lose as a result of such an exercise. Party and government bosses spend their time praising and protecting utterly bankrupt public institutions.
Democracy is the only lasting solution
That leaves democracy. Economic democracy is competition in the financial, <-/indistrial> and commercial market places. Political democracy is competition in the political market place, plus individual liberties protected by an independent judiciary. Economic and political democracy are opposite sides of the same coin. Our present state, based on thirty years of political monopoly, cannot accept that the time has come to prove its competence in the marketplace of political ideas. After all, the Tanzanian state is founded on the ideology of eliminating divisive ideological, political and economic competitions.
The deplorable consequences of thirty years of denying the validity of political and economic pluralism are there for all to see. We are not inherently one of the poorest countries in the world; Tanzania has enormous potential for dynamic growth and wealth creation. Monopoly politics have brought us where we are today.
Further CCM hegemony is not the condition for political stability as party ideologies would have us believe. CCM's economic and political strategy has brought poverty to the rural and urban masses and wealth, accumulated through fraud and embezzlement, to the few bosses. The present enormous social inequalities resulting from CCM monopoly rule and stubborn resistance to political pluralism will be the principal causes of the tumult and conflicts which the transition to democracy is likely to involve.
<-/Tanzaia> did not invent corruption, Tanzanians are no more inherently corrupt than anybody else. In all the complex societies we find many examples of the unlawful use of position and power to advance private interests. Large-scale political bureaucratic corruption is endemic in many societies, including democracies such as the USA, Italy, Australia and Japan. But there are two differences between us and them.
Their societies deliver the goods  - they produce vast wealth. And when serious corruption is disclosed it can lead to the fall of governments, seizure of property, and the prosecution and <-/emprisonment> of those involved.
W2E008T
Editorial
South Africa at crossroads
After three years of unrelenting conflict, both at the negotiation table and in the streets, the new South Africa is being born into an atmosphere of weariness and disillusion.
The streets are soaked with blood, the negotiations are attended by ill-tempered uproar, and for millions of people, liberation is a matter of being discharged into poverty and want. South Africa, no longer ruled by apartheid, is ruled instead by fear.
The negotiations, under such conditions, have been a triumph of doggedness, resulting finally in a series of agreements that will, in the next few months, sketch the main outlines of the new state: a draft constitution, proposals for joint control of the military forces, the bill of rights, the geography of the regions.
The unveiling of the these documents will, no doubt, elicit the usual ill tempered uproar, and the uproar will obscure the extent of the achievement.
Nevertheless, this is the moment of truth for South Africa. The constitution, given the prejudices and political interests of the main negotiators, will doubtless be flawed, and so will the bill <-_or><+_of> rights.
The distribution of powers will be a compromise whose greatest virtue is neither elegance nor philosophical coherence, but that it represents an alternative to war. What we have witnessed is a variety of extremist groups being responsible for insane deeds, the aim being to disrupt the peace process.
The question that now confronts South Africa and it must not be obscured by mere political <-/noiseness> is whether, as a nation, it has the will to push through an agreement which is, despite any faults it may have, the best it has been able to achieve in three years of pushing and shoving.
During these years, each of the parties has tried to fashion the outcome that would best serve its own political interest. Surely, no politician can be expected to work for his own eclipse, and no politician in these negotiations has done so. But politicians are frequently deceived in their attempts to discern their own interests in a fast changing future.
We would like to stress that constitution-making, even for transitional constitutions, involves compromise. No party can expect to <-/abtain> exactly what it wants. And aggrieved negotiating parties should remember that they are not the only ones to have made concessions since the world began.
Yet foolish people still believe that there can be a negotiated settlement without each side giving out concessions, as Chief Buthelezi has demonstrated. The art of <-/negotiatin> cannot function well in a situation where all players shout fire in a crowded theatre.
At the outset one point must be emphasised; even in its draft form the constitution is incomplete and is not set in stone. Clauses which arose anxieties or fall short of expectations can be debated and revised or even re-written completely.
But let it be known that transforming South Africa is proving to be like figuring out Rubik's cube in the dark.
Moving a country of 19 million voters to true enfranchisement in one fell swoop while radically altering its system of government, while redrawing its territorial boundaries, while giving it a heady swing of '<ea/>Uhuru' but tempering this with a sober draught of democracy ... It would be difficult enough if everyone agreed on what is best for the country.
But, of course, they don't. The self-serving interests range from entire 'volke' to regional power bases to the rich, who accept there must be restitution to the poor but balk at how this should be done, to the poor, who seek simplistic and possible self-defeating solutions.
But while those committed to solving the struggle to click the coloured blocks around in the correct sequence, at least those calling the shots are the sober-minded men and women of the technical committees whom the planning committee had the foresight to line up before the blindfolds went on.
What can the rest of Africa do? We must work to encourage the on-going peace process and abandon the worn-out policies of the confrontation and disengagement designed by the generation of self interested leaders.
Let our leaders know that to continue deceiving ourselves that the rest of Africa can prosper without bringing South Africa in the fold is to engage in some kind of congenial thought. 
Rid us of the parastatals now
Our lead article tells a number of depressing stories, none more depressing than the ill-considered defence of the bankrupt parastatals by the Minister of Finance, Steven Kibona. By his own subsequent admission, the sector is a huge net loss maker. A few parastatals appear to make money: the great majority lose vast amounts and have been doing so for years. Even the "profitable" ones are not lossmakers if we consider their debts to the banks, the Treasury (for import support), and outstanding repayments on initial investments. In Tanzania, there is no such thing as a profitable parastatal. Even those which have been obtaining free donor-funded raw materials from abroad by not paying counterpart funds, still manage to lose money.
Rather than trying to defend a dying sector, the Minister should come clean: present Government policy is to liquidate bankrupt commercial parastatals, sell off those with something left to sell, and set-up joint ventures with private investors where possible. There are some lossmakers which will have to survive, since they are (unfortunately) natural monopolies. We are stuck with ATC, TRC, TANESCO and TPTC whether we like it or not. We can take measures to improve their efficiency, but we are not going to close them down.
This is not the case for most of the remaining three hundred and forty commercial parastatals. Out of the Minister's own list of the top ten loss-makers we should say goodbye to the following: NMC (already on the way out), Polytex, Southern Paper Mills, Mutax, Mwatex, and the Tanzania Fertilizer Company. If we continue to throw money at these and a host of other big loss-makers, from AISCO to Zana za Kilimo, we should realise that we are doing so at the public expense, and that the general public pays the price for their continued hopeless existence for no public profit or benefit whatsoever. If Minister Kibona aspires to act in the public interest rather than the interest of the parastatal bosses who so impress him by their sterling performance, then he will set to work immediately to divest us of three hundred parasitic, antisocial public companies. Or does he want us to end up like the Soviet Union?
The good old days are gone when we pretended that we needed SU companies because they provided vital services to the masses. We can no longer argue that closing these companies will cause unacceptable hardship to those losing their jobs. Those lost jobs are a very unfortunate inevitability if we are to begin getting our economy back on the rails. Most of the companies in question should never have been created in the first place. Politics put Mwatex in Mwanza and Mutex in Musoma, not economic rationality. We never had the agricultural base to subsidise these industrial white elephants and their very creation has further undermined the agricultural export sector, in which lies our greatest potential for growth.
Unfortunately, most unfortunately, even if our SUs were run competently and honestly (which they are most definitely not) they would still not be able to produce many goods which were price or quality competitive with imports. For the foreseeable future, there has to be a retrenchment in the industrial sector if adequate resources are to be made available for the revival of our agricultural and other productive sectors. For the most part, consumer goods will have to be imported. Non-competitive private sector companies will also - unfortunately - have to close.
Economics is a gloomy science. But it teaches us that every act of investment, lending or consumption has an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of keeping 341 bankrupt companies afloat is the billion-shilling weekly addition to our annual inflation rate. If Minister Kibona wants to go down in history as the person who guided inflation In Tanzania through the 100 percent per annum barrier, then he's going about it the right way.
We single out Minister Kibona because he has been the most vocal recent defender of the SUs. But we are aware that in defending the SUs he is also voicing the opinion of a lot of our major politicians, none of whom can face the people with an honest admission of the mess we're in, for fear of losing their populist image.
Instead of pretending that the parastatals can be salvaged, the Government of President Mwinyi should come out and tell the people the truth. The majority of public corporations will have to close, go private, or be subsidised out of budgetary votes. To pretend differently is to deny the obvious, and to refuse the responsibilities of public office. The death warrant of the parastatals was signed with the passing of the Banking Act during the last session of Parliament in Dodoma: it is now up to the Government to carry out the sentence. If we don't kill them, they will kill us: It's a very simple choice. 
Academic Freedom and Democracy
The recent sacking of three senior academics at the University of Dar es Salaam reported elsewhere in this edition serves to highlight a number of the more pernicious aspects of the one party state in Tanzania. First, it is a myth that CCM is encouraging citizens to air their opinions openly on the pros and cons of the multiparty system. Any government or parastatal worker who is foolish enough to voice criticisms of the CCM party-state to the Presidential commission risks his or her job. Dr. Kweka, a committed socialist and long time party cadre took the commission's mandate seriously, gave his honest assessment of CCM's performance to the commissioners, and as a result finds himself sent to Bagamoyo to finish his academic career in internal exile. The public should remember this when the big day comes for CCM to publish its findings on the political future of the country: in a one party state, everybody thinks twice before saying <-/anyhing> in public critical of the status quo.
We might also ask ourselves how a party can clean up its image and behaviour - as CCM claims it is doing - if it is so vindictive and intolerant of <-/resonable> criticism from its own card-carrying members.
Second, Drs Baregu, Chachage, and Kweka were informed of their transfers by the PS of UTUMISHI acting on instructions from State House. There are perhaps 200,000 people working in parastatals in this country. Are we to believe therefore that the President has discretionary powers over the jobs of all these people, and can transfer them at will if they say bad things about CCM? We will soon find out, since the legality of the President's decision is being challenged by those involved.
Third, it seems clear that the Mwinyi regime is preparing for a showdown with the students and academics at the Hill as a result of last year's protests, which included criticisms of official corruption and economic <-/mismanagment>. Closing the University was itself an overreaction revealing how incapable the system is of assimilating public criticism. Come October, the unresolved crisis is likely to resurface, and this time the state is more likely than ever to bring the iron fist out of the velvet glove in order to silence its opponents once and for all.
In one party states, academics and students are routinely victimised and punished for criticising those in power. Tanzania is no exception to this rule. The fight for academic freedom is an integral part of the struggle for democracy, and democrats everywhere should be prepared to voice their support for Dr Kweka and his colleagues in their present fight against the blatant misuse of state power.
The Family Mirror has taken the cue. Are other Tanzanians who believe in human rights, democracy and intellectual freedom going to stand up against this direct and <-/uncalled for> impingement on academic freedom and freedom of expression in a country that claims to be the citadel of one-party democracy in Africa? 
W2E009T
Opinion 
Traditional healers role welcome 
Finding cures for various ailments is one of the vexing challenges that medical researchers and practitioners face.
Unlike adventures like mountain-climbing and ski-diving in which those involved seek to prove their prowess and from which they derive pleasure, the value of medical discoveries lies in its linkage to human life. 
This explains the concern over the resistance of some parasites or other disease-inducing factors to particular drugs as well as medication of other forms. 
For this implies that diseases have an edge over medical practice. 
Malaria, for instance, is stubbornly defying a cure in many cases, because chloroquine, which is the main preventive and curative drug, tends to prove powerless against the parasite that causes it. 
Diabetes, too, is similarly stubborn, and the desperation of sufferers and relatives is manifested through letters we publish regularly, seeking information on a possible effective cure. 
In the extreme case of AIDS, the anxiety stems not from resistance to treatment but from lack of a conclusively effective vaccine or drug. 
In all the dimensions - weakening drugs, patients whose condition does not readily respond to treatment and outright lack of a cure - the onslaught against disease has to be total. 
A basic input in that onslaught is the involvement of traditional healers, whose contribution in complimentary terms alongside modern researchers and practitioners, promises to help realise results definitively and faster. 
Medical authorities of a high calibre like professors Philemon Sarungi and Godfrey Mwaluko (Health Minister and Muhimbili Medical Centre Director-General, respectively) recently expressed sentiments in the vein of encouraging traditional healers. 
The sentiments rest on factual foundations, for there is more than ample evidence to prove that some people for whom modern hospitals proved helpless resort to traditional healers and are cured. Some combined both and it similarly works. 
The snag, apparently, is mutual suspicion and a tendency by either side to consider itself superior and to undermine the other. 
The suspicion and self-congratulation has to be shed: traditional and modern researchers and practitioners should join forces to fight common medical enemies. For division of this score weakens the tempo of the onslaught. 
We must expose criminal elements
The concept of <ea/>Sungusungu - which may be described as self-reliance in defence - was originally exclusive to Tabora, Mwanza and Shinyanga regions. 
For people living in other parts of the country, the concept sounded distant, and, not being part of the tension and crimes that <ea/>Sungusungu groups sought to calm and curb, some even tended to despise the system. 
It is only after the benefits of <ea/>Sungusungu had become clearly manifest that attitudes towards the concept changed - cynicism being replaced by appreciation that <ea/>Sungusungu groups are prosecuting a noble cause. 
Which is why other regions tried it out and the ensuing success popularised it as a very effective means of combating crime. 
Robbers and other criminal elements have hit formidable snags in the form of alert and effective <ea/>Sungusungu who thwart their evil schemes. 
Thanks to <ea/>Sungusungu, some of those elements have "retired" from crime because it is no longer a lucrative "career". 
These include those who have responded to the government call to formally declare their decision to quit crime, ahead of next Sunday's public polls to expose them. 
Theirs is a welcome decision as it is doubly beneficial: instead of perpetrating crime, they will turn their attention and energies to productive activities for their own and the nation's benefit; and with less criminals, the country becomes more peaceful. 
Those who have not done so have a chance during the coming week, to avail themselves of the opportunity and thus steer clear of the repercussions of being voted into the list of unrepentant criminals. 
On their part, members of the public should get set to make a crucial patriotic gesture by fearlessly exposing criminals who promote tension, kill and maim peaceful people and dispossess them of their property. 
They should, in addition, consolidate <ea/>Sungusungu vigilance, which has proved to be enemy number one of the criminals, in the same way as the latter constitute our enemy number one. 
Solidarity Walk a show of unity
It is common, these days, to read and hear news about chaos in various parts of the world. In specific countries, the assembly of people at particular spots is usually a harbinger of ugly incidents characterized by clashes between the police and civilians, or between civilian factions professing divergent interests. 
Bloodshed, looting and destruction of property combine to create a state of general anarchy which disturbs peace and renders the concept of national familyhood as well as the process of nation-building difficult to effect. 
That situation makes the respective governments panicky and one of its manifestations is a pathological fear of human assembly: people who converge on any spot - no matter how few and harmless the purpose may be - are perceived to be potential trouble-makers. 
As a safety measure - but it does not always work - some regime set limits on how many persons can meet at a given place, beyond which they would incur the wrath of state might, even if what may have drawn them together was a review of yesterday's major football match! 
In Tanzania, on the contrary, people gathered at some points for a public rally or in motion to demonstrate support for a particular cause, do not scare the Party and the Government. 
Which is why comfortably and successfully, the leadership mobilises the people to come forward and participate in rallies and demonstrations in which all of them, as composers of a broad constituency, have a stake. 
One of the effective mediums of this ideal is the annual Solidarity Walk, the latest of which was held yesterday. It is touching, and amply demonstrative of patriotic conviction, that the people enthusiastically set out from their homes at dawn to join fellow Tanzanians in a march that cements familyhood. 
Besides enhancing solidarity, the march testifies to the peaceful character of Tanzanians - a characteristic that every successive march consolidates. 
In some countries, the debate about, or clamour for political pluralism have turned out to be a recipe for factional clashes and even national turmoil. 
The general peaceful characteristic of Tanzanians, plus their sober approach to issues that touch their lives, have served us well - sparing us of the ugly incidents and tension witnessed elsewhere. 
There are a few people in our midst, unfortunately, who lack those attributes: in the on-going political debate, they miss the point by mudslinging personalities rather than making intelligible analyses of issues; some have even made veiled threats to resort to violence if their presumed righteous wishes were not fulfilled. 
We say: the united front of the majority who are sober and peaceful shall triumph over the few who advocate character-assassination and chaos. Yesterday's Solidarity Walk was yet another practical demonstration of that resolve. 
TPTC, TRC moves must be permanent
Every public institution worth its salt has to be conscious about its image. That image is produced by performance: if it is good, it deservingly earns the praise of the public whom it is enjoined to serve well. 
If, on the contrary, the performance is unsatisfactory, it attracts outbursts and murmurs of discontent from the public. 
Understandably, then, no public institution would want to be associated with poor service; but the good service that is praise-eliciting has to be <-_strived><+_striven> for - it cannot simply be willed. 
The challenge is particularly pressing for institutions whose nature places them in direct and perpetual contact with the public. These include the postal and telecommunications as well as the railway services. 
Many people are beneficiaries of those services and they are thankful for it. But there are many others who, occasionally or even frequently, have fallen victims to poor services in either sector. 
For them, the Tanzania Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (TPTC) and the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) are not friendly, and that friendship can be restored only if services are improved. 
In respect to TPTC, discontent is created by things like money sent by telegraphic order that never reaches its destination; phone allocations that do not honour the first-come - served principle; reported faulty phones that are not readily tackled; mix-ups in customers' bills; and the nuisance of employees who solicit bribes for rendering services. 
For TRC, some customers undergo a nightmare before securing tickets; fixing bookings; travelling in suspense because of the high security risk and the maze of red tape before compensation for lost luggage is effected. It is encouraging that the authorities of both institutions have been periodically taking action to overcome those problems. 
Recently, the TPTC management posted advertisements in the press, notifying customers where they should report cases of employees who demand bribes for certain services, so that punitive action may be taken against the culprits. 
On its part, TRC's measures to strengthen security on trains as well as at its stations are bound to please customers. 
We wish to stress, however, that those moves, plus those underway as well as those in the pipeline, should not be short-term, but part of permanent and resolute campaign to create and sustain good images of the institutions. 
Promises must be fulfilled
Everyone has had an experience of falling sick or nursing someone who has. 
Everyone knows too, that a doctor is the expert who is consulted for observing a patient, diagnosing his or her condition and prescribing the form(s) of treatment. 
It is common knowledge, furthermore, that our country is extremely short of doctors and that, therefore, we literally have to scramble for the few available for attention. 
Given the sensitive nature of their duties - focused on curing ailments and saving lives in relation to emergencies like accidents - doctors are under extreme pressure; working for several hours to cope with several patients. 
The challenge is made more difficult by the not-so-ideal working environment, which is characterised by factors like inadequacy of drugs and shortage of surgical equipment. 
For a long time, the doctors had been silent sufferers, and this induced frustration; and it is very unlikely that frustrated workers can be very efficient and effective ones. 
Conscious of the sensitivity of the doctors' role, the Government had periodically reviewed their terms of service and benefits, with a view to improving their lot and boosting their morale to make them better practitioners. 
The recent work stoppage by doctors at the Muhimbili Medical Centre arose from unfulfilled promises on allowances, and had a snow-balling dimension, as their counterparts at Bugando Hospital in Mwanza took sympathetic action over the issue. 
It is very heartening that doctors have resumed work, pending resolution of the issue; for withdrawal of their service is tantamount to holding people's lives and their health to ransom. 
A lesson to be learnt from the issue is that it is wrong to make commitments about incentive packages when either the will or the resources to effect them are lacking. 
For the targets of those packages tune themselves for the benefits, and when these are not forthcoming, they feel cheated and are bound to react in a manner that would jeopardize the interests of the people at large. 
Garbage management duty of us all
The reported setting ablaze of the City Council's new garbage dump at Kunduchi on the outskirts of the city clearly is a cause of serious concern to authorities and residents of Dar es Salaam. 
Whatever the motive, the person or people who committed this act have negatively contributed to efforts to keep the city clean. 
We are aware of the whole controversy surrounding the "politics" of disposal and management of garbage in this sprawling city of nearly two million people. 
But the truth is that with or without such problems the question of cleaning the city for the well-being of its entire residents cannot be avoided. 
And for the exercise to realise the desired results, the City Council needs the co-operation as well as assistance of all of us. For the City Council is not just an amorphous creature that has emerged from the blues! 
W2E010T
Editorial
Mwinyi's India trip: Truth yet to be told 
By any standard, the government's recent glib statement refuting reports of the misfortune on president Mwinyi's entourage during its state visit to India, was both thoughtless and misguided.
Thoughtless because its line of argument was befuddled, untenable and confused. Misguided because it inadvertently exposed exactly what the authorities had wanted concealed. Which is why it raised more questions than it attempted to answer. It is shameful that secrecy has turned out to be Tanzania's most contagious virus. State officials, albeit working in a one-party dictatorship, had a culture to respond to some issues of public interest. In other words, those were the good old days when State House officials had a special respect for the presidency and made sure they conformed to the rules of right conduct. 
Yet these are fading snap-shots which probably explain why most African <-_government><+_governments> are not transparent for the last three decades have come in for flak. And because of polarised interests among officials in government machinery, no one wants to stand and be counted on any matter of public interest.
It is precisely why we condemn the government in no uncertain terms, for hiding the truth about the President's entourage to India which fed on food believed to have poison. Almost a month after the entourage returned with stomach upsets, a serious government would have come out with a clear, sensible statement of what exactly had happened.
A good deal of the explanation inherent in the government statement was not only convoluted and <-/hackened>, but also provoked a number of million dollar questions. What made the government to contend that stomach <-/uspsets> are a normal phenomenon, and who would subscribe to the assertion that it was normal for our dear president to run here and there on a running stomach?
And assuming it is normal for state visitors to have stomach upsets resulting from so-called change of recipe, who in his right senses would argue that the death of the President's valet, Mr. S. Nyang'ali was a normal phenomenon?
The government has admitted that the recipe had complicated the deceased's earlier kidney ailment. Why, therefore, was the <-/deseased> included in the entourage whose members were supposed to have undergone intensive medical examination? Why was the <-/deseased> not hospitalised in India which has superior medical facilities and experts, and instead dumped him at the Muhimbili Medical Centre (MMC) which lacks even basic medicine? Wouldn't it defy reason if the President's valet's kidney problem was unknown to the powers that be, including President Mwinyi himself?
And if the government did not hurriedly and quietly lay the <-/deseased> to rest, why did the State House refuse to confirm the incident to this newspaper when asked to do so? Why would the MMC confirm the incident if it were a concoction? Who, by the way, says the <-/deceasel> did not deserve mention at least in one of the state owned media?
A quick examination of the government's statement certainly shows that it was framed by an amateur who was just learning to tell lies. An experienced liar would have pre-empted the investigative media by being the first to disclose the India story immediately after returning home. Which is why we wonder whether or not it is not the job description of the President's Press Secretary to communicate to the media on such matters of state.
We believe that what was required of the government was to give a composite picture of the President's state visit to India, tell the people areas in which they succeeded and which they did not, basing on the premise that the people have the right to know because such tours are made in the perceived interest of every <-_Tanzania><+_Tanzanian>.
Of course nobody is interested in knowing how many millions of dollars derived from tax payers sweat were spent by the huge entourage, much as Tanzanians know that such delegations are not only normally extravagant and wasteful, but also convivial and fond of feasting. We stress that accountability should be the moral maxim of any responsible government, at least now when political pluralism is very much in place.
And a lot more questions remain unanswered. For example, what makes President Mwinyi so close to Brigadier Mohamed Abdul Rahim Al-Ali, the man at the centre of the Loliondo Game Reserve scandal? Why has their relationship remained something of an enigma, a top secret?
If we have to believe the story that the President's stop-over in Dubai on his way back was a matter of necessity, was the lavish party hosted by the Brigadier for the President also a matter of necessity, given the fact that most members in the President's entourage were sick? What about the special plane offered by the Brigadier to bring the President home when already there was an Air Tanzania scheduled flight? Don't Tanzanians deserve to know?
While we appeal to the government to be transparent, we wish to remind those in power of Socrates, a Greek philosopher, who had rightly told his judges that the unexamined life was not worth living. We challenge the government to put the record straight and admit that what happened was not only unusual, but also broke tradition with the old and stifling. Let it be known that it would be puerile for any leader to think that Tanzanians will remain "boxed in" ad finitum. 
Ditch in the Media Council Bill now 
Years before he went on to become one of his country's most important literary figures, American novelist Ernest Hemingway worked as a journalist for the Kansas City Star. He was just 18 years old when he joined the daily newspaper as a cub reporter in 1917.
Around the same time at Eton College in England, 14-year-old George Orwell was writing articles in his school's magazine. He would go on to become a freelance journalist, essayist and another of this century's pre-eminent authors.
And on the eye of Tanzania's independence, a young teacher named Julius Nyerere dabbled in journalism, contributing to an anti-colonial newspaper. Today he is revered as the Father of the Nation.
In addition to the gift of letters, these great men had something else in common: none were holders of degrees, diplomas or certificates in journalism when they began writing articles for publication.
And because of this, not one of these men would have been eligible to embark on a career in journalism in this country had the Tanzanian government's recently proposed Media Professions Regulation Act been in place. Not even <ea/>Mwalimu.
This represents one of the major contradictions of the new legislation drafted by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Dr. William Shija. Although purporting to safeguard high standards of journalism through the licensing of journalists, the Bill will in fact serve only to smother new talent and invite mediocrity and complacency. And Since the bill calls for the creation of government-run Media Council, it will also lead to further erosion of Tanzania's precarious press freedom.
While successful completion of a degree in journalism at respected institution is laudable, is it absolutely as a pre-requisite to become a journalist? We think not. And across the globe are countless journalists dedicated to their craft who - like Hemingway and Orwell - have never so much attended a short course in basic reporting. Yet they remain respected by their peers.
To be a journalist means a lot more than getting good marks in a classroom environment and receiving a diploma after two years. Besides, whatever can be learned at an institution can as easily be imparted through on the job training. Indeed, to be a journalist is to continually learn and improve.
But there are more important concepts that simply can't be taught; these must come naturally, or through experience. No lecturer can infuse a would be journalist, for example, with a natural sense for news, the ability to develop and maintain good sources or a keen sense of ethics. A journalist either has these skills, or doesn't; a thousand diplomas won't help.
The mere fact that this Bill seeks to exert government control over the media should be enough to set off alarm bells among progressive forces. As Tanzania inches forward to pluralistic democracy, one would assume that part and parcel of such a system is a free and independent press. Just as an official parliament opposition is integral to the success of Western-style democracy, so too is vigilant press.
But how can the media remain an autonomous entity under a Media Council created by, and answerable to, government? The answer is simple: it cannot. A watchdog does not bite its master, even if the master is doing something wrong.
In addition to registering journalists, the proposed Council would enforce a code of conduct for the media. While a code of conduct is a worthy tool for any profession, it should be active members of profession itself who draft and employ it. Simply, journalists should police themselves; anything less is an erosion of the media's vital autonomy.
As for monitoring and uplifting journalistic standards, that's why newspapers have editors. And if a newspaper fails to abide by the country's existing libel laws, let the judiciary play its role. To have a special Media Council mete out judgement in matters of libel is arguably above the law, hence unconstitutional. In short, the government has no place in the newsroom, or courtrooms, of the nation.
We see as odious the Council's power to cancel the registration of any newspaper or radio or television station, as well as that of an individual journalist. With this in place, it will be very easy for the government to sacrifice the Newspaper Act of 1976, as recommended by the Nyalali Commission report. It is this piece of legislation that is currently used to muzzle the press.
It is a spurious contention, therefore, to uphold the proposed Council as a safeguard of press freedom. Clearly the intent of the Council is quite the opposite: to usurp the role of journalists as the legitimate eyes and ears of Tanzania's taxpayers, the public. To say the bill is to uphold press freedom is nothing short of a contradiction in term.
Why is the government now trying to push through new, yet retrogressive laws to rein in the press? Is it, as CHADEMA's Edwin Mtei claims, that the government is tired of the private press continually uncovering scandals involving top officials? That would make sense. The government has repeatedly scolded the private press for what it calls unsubstantiated allegations, arguing the need for guidance in matters concerning ethics. Hence the proposed Media Council.
But instead of expending energy to bridle the press, the government should do some serious self-examination. Why are rumours and unsubstantiated allegations being printed? It is no secret that the media have long been banging their heads against the walls of `Ikulu' and other government strongholds in vain attempts to ascertain the truth. The government should clean up its own house, and members of the media will take care of theirs.
Dr. Shija: Let the Bill die a silent, sensible death before it is tabled during the next parliamentary session. We see the Media Professions Regulation Act for what it is: a smoke-screen for unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats to hide Tanzania its future Hemingways, Orwells and Nyereres? And why do you want to deny democracy one of its most important components: a true independent press?
Dr. Shija would do well to realise that the old political order needs a solid whack.