Category Archives: Issue 09

TA ISSUE 09

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Issue 9 cover

BRITAIN-TANZANIA SOCIETY
Bulletin of Tanzanian Affairs No. 9 – January 1980

Contents
Editor’s Note
Speech by President Nyerere at a dinner for diplomats in Dar es Salaam
Tanzania’s Negotiations with the I.M.F. – Reginald Green
Analysis of ‘Review of the National Economy’ 1978/79 – Randal Sadleir
Notes on Current Issues
Summary of Report on ‘Appropriate Technology for Grain Storage’ – John Arnold
Digest of Tanzanian News – Graham Mytton
Book Review – Terence Ranger
Book Notes

Information for the Bulletin

There is an increasing amount of information being published about Tanzania but the number and variety of the journals which are liable to publish articles or notes makes monitoring difficult. I would very much like to hear from anyone who takes or regularly sees a publication which is likely to carry information on Tanzania, and who would he prepared to do any of the following:

Inform me when articles, etc. concerning Tanzania are published Prepare a summary of the article (with or without a commentary) Loan their copy of the journal to someone willing to write a summary or review.

The journals which should be first priority for monitoring are:
Africa Research Bulletin
Africa Confidential
Africa
Africa Business
New Africa
but there are many others which contain occasional or specialist items.

I would also appreciate any items of news or comment which members receive from friends or contacts in Tanzania. Books and even articles may he based on information which is several years out of date by the time it appears in print. If members of the Society are to be in a position to reply to the sometimes uninformed and hostile comment on Tanzania which appears in sections of the British press, we need our own sources of up to date information. An example of how isolated pieces of information can he put together is the ‘Notes on Current Issues’ section of this issue of the Bulletin, which has been compiled from Tanzanian newspaper reports, supplemented by comments of visitors from Tanzania. I hope that it will be possible to continue this section in future issues.

JOHN ARNOLD
Department of Adult Education, The University, SOUTHAMPTON S09 5NH

NYERERE’S NEW YEAR SPEECH

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PRESIDENT NYERERE’S SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN FOR DIPLOMATS ACCREDITED TO TANZANIA ON 1ST JANUARY 1980 IN DAR ES SALAAM

It is not my intention tonight to make a survey of the events of 1979. The war in which we were still engaged when we met together a year ago has fortunately ended. But Tanzanian troops are still in Uganda. Despite what our detractors say, they are not there as an Army of Occupation, but at the request of the Uganda Government. I could wish that those countries which criticise us for what we and Uganda regard as an act of Third World and neighbourly solidarity had been more forthcoming when the Ugandans made approaches for help with their defence problem. For it now appears that Amin’s victims are to be economically punished by those who claimed to welcome his fall, simply because, although both poor, Tanzania and Uganda are cooperating to deal with an obvious national security problem in a way which prevents Super-Power intervention. We continue to he1ieve that it would be irresponsible for us to withdraw all our troops from Uganda while a new Defence Force is being trained and while the Uganda Government requests us to stay.

One other event of 1979 which gives satisfaction to us is the end of hostilities in Rhodesia following the Agreement reached in London between the British and the Patriotic Front. We congratulate everyone concerned in reaching that agreement. But we congratulate in particular the Patriotic Front and the people of Zimbabwe for their achievement. For it is a regrettable fact, but nonetheless a fact, that it is the guerrilla war which forced on the minority rulers of Rhodesia this surrender of power and enabled the British to re-establish their authority.

The sincerity with which the Nationalists, and Africa, have been saying that they are fighting for a transfer of power and not for individual leaders must now be obvious to all. For a real transfer of power following free and fair elections is all that the Patriotic Front has insisted upon as the price of a Cease Fire. In all other respects they have accepted political and military conditions which are disadvantageous to them. So the Agreement has been signed. If it is carried out by all parties, it will lead to a transfer of power to the majority following upon the elections in February. And Tanzania will accept the result of those elections, provided only that they are judged free and fair by the group of Commonwealth Observers, and provided that South Africa does not interfere. We notice, however, that a spokesman for the White Minority has predicted a civil war if the Patriotic Front wins the elections. And we take note also of British and South African silence on that comment.

In Namibia, unfortunately, the same progress has not been made. South Africa is still being allowed to prevent peace and to maintain its domination over the country. The result can only be more violence. For Africa – including Tanzania – is committed to the struggle for Namibian freedom. If South Africa is permitted with impunity to continue its manoeuvres and its delays over the United Nations plan for the transfer of power to the people of Namibia, then we shall have no choice but to back up an intensified guerrilla war.

Your Excellencies; Tanzania needs peace – in Africa and elsewhere. But the major economic problems which have preoccupied us in recent months, and which darken the coming year, were not caused by the war against Amin’s Uganda, nor the African struggle for freedom. These make things worse; they added to the strain on our resources and deflected our attention at an important time. But we were experiencing inflation before October 1978; our balance of payments was in serious deficit before that war; oil price increases have nothing to do with events in East or Southern Africa.

These externally caused problems are obvious, and so is our need for an injection of balance of payments support. What recently became equally obvious to me, but nevertheless strange and repugnant, was the attempt by the I.M.F. to exploit those difficulties in order to interfere with the management of our economy.

The I.M.F. always lays down conditions for using any of its facilities. We therefore expected that there would be certain conditions imposed should we desire to use the I.M.F. Extended Fund Facility. But we expected these conditions to be non-ideological, and related to ensuring that money lent to us is not wasted, pocketed by political leaders or bureaucrats, used to build private villas at home or abroad, or deposited in private Swiss bank accounts. We also accepted that we could justly be asked how we were planning to deal with the problem in the medium or longer term. We could then have accepted or rejected such conditions; but we would not have felt it necessary to make a strong and public protest.

Tanzania is not prepared to devalue its currency just because this is a traditional free market solution to everything and regardless of the merits of our position. It is not prepared to surrender its right to restrict imports by measures designed to ensure that we import quinine rather than cosmetics, or buses rather than cars for the elite. My Government is not prepared to give up our national endeavour to provide primary education for every child, basic medicines and some clean water for all our people. Cuts may have to be made in our national expenditure, but we will decide whether they fall on public services or private expenditure. Nor are we prepared to deal with inflation and shortages by relying only on monetary policy regardless of its relative effect on the poorest and less poor. Our price control machinery may not be the most effective in the world, but we will not abandon price control; we will only strive to make it more efficient. And above all, we shall continue with our endeavours to build a socialist society.

When an international institution refuses us access to the international credit at its disposal except on condition that we surrender to it our policy determination, then we make no application for that credit. The choice is theirs – and ours. But such conditions do reinforce our convictions about the importance of the Third World demand for changes in the management structure of the I.M.F. It needs to be made really international, and really an instrument of all its members, rather than a device by which powerful economic forces in some rich countries increase their power over the poor nations of the world.

There was a time when a number of people were urging that all aid to the Third World Countries should be channelled through International institutions. They honestly believed that such institutions would be politically and ideologically neutral. I do not know whether there are now people who honestly believe that the I.M.F. is politically or ideologically neutral. It has an ideology of economic and social development which it is trying to impose on poor countries irrespective of their own clearly stated policies. And when we reject I.M.F. conditions we hear the threatening whisper: “Without accepting our conditions you will not get our money, and you will get no other money”. Indeed we have already heard hints from some quarters that money or credit will not he made available to us until we have reached an understanding with the I.M.F.

When did the I.M.F. become an International Ministry of Finance? When did nations agree to surrender to it their power of decision making?

Your Excellencies: It is this growing power of the I.M.F. and the irresponsible and arrogant way in which it is being wielded against the Poor that has forced me to use this opportunity to make these unusual remarks in a New Year Speech to you. The problems of my country and other Third World Countries are grave enough without the political interference of I.M.F. officials. If they cannot help at the very least they should stop meddling.

I have made it repeatedly clear to my own countrymen however, that whatever decisions are made by us, and by our friends, 1980 is going to be a very difficult year for Tanzania. I believe that when they understand the problem our people will respond to this economic challenge as they have responded to other challenges in the past. I believe they will bear the further sacrifices, and further burdens, which present conditions impose upon us just as long as they are assured that we are doing our best to share the burdens equitably and continuing to pursue our own policies.

Your Excellencies, despite these grim predictions about the immediate future I do sincerely wish you and your families a Very Happy New Year. I ask you all for your continued personal cooperation, sympathy and understanding as we enter 1980. I assure you that my government will, for its part, continue to work in friendship with you and your governments throughout the coming year.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE I.M.F.

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NEGOTIATIONS with the I.M.F. and the RESIGNATION of the FINANCE MINISTER, EDWIN MTEI

The report in the Guardian of 9 November claimed that negotiations for an I.M.F. loan to Tanzania had broken down because the I.M.F. conditions were unacceptable to the Tanzanian Government. The Finance Minister, Edwin Mtei, had resigned apparently because he felt unable to take responsibility for the economy without the I.M.F. loan and the financial support requested from et number of western countries. This breakdown would probably mean that the other western countries from whom assistance had been requested would now be even more reluctant to help. Mtei had been replaced by a former Finance Minister, Amir Jamal.

Although there has been no official statement, this report seems to be substantially correct.

The following notes on the background to the negotiations are based on a briefing provided by Professor Reg Green.

Tanzania faces a very severe short term crisis. It needs over 1979-81 to obtain £200 million in soft loans. The Tanzanian economy survived the 1973/74 crisis (produced by two years of drought, the need to import grain and increased oil costs) by very firm controls on imports and incomes. Real output grew at between 4.5% and 6% between 1975 and 1978; food production increased over the same period by an average 4% p.a.; by 1977 external payments and receipts (including normal aid) were in balance.

The causes of the current crisis are complex. There is the continuing poor export performance and the excessive relaxation of import controls during 1977-78 (a policy introduced under pressure from the I.M.F. and I.B.R.D.). On top of these basic weaknesses have come:

a. the Ugandan invasion and its aftermath of support for Ugandan liberation (cost likely to be of the order of £250 million.)

b. major floods (losses due to flood damage – mainly crop losses, roads and bridges, calculated at approx. £40 m.)

c. oil price increases (amounting to £25m. per year)

d. Zambia’s inability to remit Tazara, port and goods payments (amounting to £30m.)

The short-term need is for foreign exchange. The uses would be general loosening of limits on key imports for keeping the economy going, (e.g. fertilizer, industrial raw materials, machinery and transport spares, drugs) and on materials for investment (e.g. structural steel, machinery). Project tied lending would be far too slow to meet the need. There is at present £25-£30 m. of aid reimbursement claims outstanding because Tanzania’s administrative machinery has difficulty in dealing with the procedure required by donor countries. Tanzania’s balance of payments deficit for the two years 1979/80 and 1980/81 is estimated at £620 m.

It is proposed to meet this amount by:
Import cuts of £300 m
Export increases of 20 m
Existing economic assistance 100 m
TOTAL £420 m
Special emergency loan £200 m
GRAND TOTAL £620 m

Without this emergency loan the import cuts required would reduce the economy to stagnation, since non-food consumer imports are already so low, further cuts would be concentrated an goods and materials which are essential to the basic working of the economy. There is nothing else left to cut. Such cuts would prevent production (exports or import substitutes) to reduce the gap. They would certainly greatly reduce Tanzania’s potential as an export market for at least a decade and halt domestic growth for several years. They could destroy the development dynamic built up over 1961-1973 and sustained over 1975-78. That result is in nobody’s interests.

The major western industrial countries and smaller countries with a record of supporting Tanzania have been approached; of these only Sweden has so far responded. The others appear to have been waiting for the result of negotiations with the I.M.F.

The I.M.F. team which visited Tanzania proposed a package of economic measures which, in effect, required an abandonment of the socialist policies followed since 1967. The measures included a substantial devalulation, removal of import restrictions, dismantling price controls, a general wage freeze but selective salary increases and a reduction of expenditure on services such as health and education. In the view of the Tanzanian Government, these proposals were unlikely to have the results hoped for by the I.M.F. and were, in any case, politically unacceptable.

The argument was not about how severe the measures needed to be. The restrictions proposed by Tanzania are stricter than the I.M.F. require. The real argument is about how imports can be contained at levels that Tanzania can afford, steep inflation avoided, and the priority which should be given to personal consumption as against social services and investment.

Throughout the negotiations, it seemed to Tanzanian officials that the I.M.F. experts had no real understanding of how the Tanzanian economy is operated and controlled.

REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY 1978-79

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ANALYSIS of REVIEW of the NATIONAL ECONOMY 1978-79 (Hali ya Uchumi wa Taifa Katika Mwaka 1978-79)
Government Printer, Dar es Salaam 1979. Shillings 20.50. 118 pp.

The latest review of the Tanzanian economy gives, as might be expected, a somewhat confused and bleak picture of the unhappy East African scene, drafted as it presumably was whilst the war in Uganda was still being waged. Indeed, with hindsight, it is clear that the price of military victory has been high not only in precious lives, but also in the inevitable delay to vital development plans. The authors write in the opening paragraph that … “In the period 1978-79, the state of the national economy showed a decline compared with the previous year. The national income increased by 5.6% but this increase is less than the annual increase allowed for by the third Five Year Development Plan (6% per annum) and also less than the increase attained in 1977 (5.9%), although more than that achieved in 1976 (5.2%)”. At the same time all trade between the East African countries virtually came to a standstill as a result of the continued closure of the Kenya/Tanzania border, allied to the effects of the crusade against Idi Amin. Imports rose, but exports fell owing to the lower prices of the main cash crops, with the exception of cashew nuts and tobacco, leading to a worsening trade deficit of £249 millions as against £83 millions in 1977.

More serious, Government recurrent expenditure showed a massive 36% increase over the previous period to reach a record £732 millions and to turn a small budget surplus of just over £1 million into a deficit of £49 million; the Uganda war is the third of four reasons for this expenditure increase, the others being described, somewhat vaguely, as to revise and strengthen services provided by Township Authorities, to provide salaries for various grades of Government and Party leaders in the villages, and to finish off, foster and strengthen various projects started in previous years.

The cost of living continued to rise, with the retail price index for towns in Mainland Tanzania rising by 17% for the last quarter of 1978 as compared to 12% for the last quarter of the previous year, although the index for lower paid workers in Dar es Salaam remained unchanged. In a still mainly subsistence economy, it was fortunate that the output of maize, rice, wheat and other foodcrops continued to increase although, with the happy exceptions of tea and sugar, that of cash crops as a whole declined.

Industrial output continues to lag behind Development Plan targets, factories in many cases falling far below their estimated capacity for the now familiar reasons of power cuts and water shortages, scarcity of experts and inefficiency, plus increased operating costs and higher prices of raw materials. The minerals and building sectors also declined severely, the latter owing to the difficulty in obtaining building materials.

The number of workers in paid employment on the mainland. increased by 2.8% to 511,310 thanks largely to the commercial, agricultural, communications and public transport sectors. The 1978 wage bill also rose by 17.7% albeit not quite achieving the same rate of progress as in 1977.

The tourist trade, which tends to reflect the political and economic climate of a given country, showed signs of a slight improvement, in that the number of visitors rose by 5.1% from the previous year’s low of 118,000 to 148,400 although, strangely, the average length of a visitor’s stay dropped to its lowest ever period of 2-4 days! Again, although there was a sharp drop in the number of visitors to Game Parks from 275,000 in 1976 to only 111,000 in 1978, it was comforting to know that 280 poachers had been arrested and sentenced to terms of imprisonment and fines totalling 21 years and 21,000/- respectively.

This report which, incidentally, has itself gone up in price more than 25% from 15/- to 20/50, must surely describe the nadir of Tanzanian economic fortunes as she is buffeted by the successive blows of Kenyan quarrels and Ugandan war, not to speak of the perennial problems of petrol prices and world inflation. She will find, like others before her, that although the euphoria bred of military and political success transcends purely economic considerations in the short term, only great efforts by her own people supported by the practical sympathy of the outside world, will enable her to regain valuable lost ground. In this endeavour she has the priceless advantage of a broadly based political stability which should be strengthened still further by current hopes for peace in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

Randal Sadleir

NOTES ON CURRENT ISSUES

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Changes in Zanzibar
Friends of Tanzania have ever since the union of Zanzibar and Tanganyika been disturbed by the continuation of arbitrary rule on Zanzibar and Pemba islands and the apparent inability of the central Tanzanian government to persuade Zanzibar to accept free elections and adopt the normal processes of law. There seems to be no doubt that some of the activities of the rulers of Zanzibar have been highly embarrassing to the Tanzanian Government. When questioned about the failure of Zanzibar to live up to the Tanzanian standards of personal freedom, Julius Nyerere has always said that full union of the two countries would take time to achieve.

The problem within Zanzibar has largely been caused by the group who controlled the party and owed their position to the part they had played in the 1964 revolution. This group strongly opposed the idea that they should submit themselves to an election. The creation of a single political party, C.C.M., to replace TANU and ASP was an important step towards the creation of a single state.

In October a new Constitution was adopted for the islands which provides for an elected President and Council of Representatives. Zanzibar’s representation in the National Assembly consists of two elements; the members of the Revolutionary Council are ex officio members and there are also members representing constituencies. Vice-President Jumbe obtained agreement that the constituency members should also be elected and not appointed. Zanzibar retains a disproportionate share of the seats in the Tanzanian National Assembly and in the Central Committee of C.C.M. This seems to be the price which must he paid to persuade her to bring her internal policies closer to those of mainland Tanzania.

Negotiations with Lonrho
The multi-national company, Lonrho was ordered out of Tanzania because of evidence that it was attempting to exert political influence in Zimbabwe. Lonrho has publicly criticised the Government of Tanzania over what it claims is delay in settling the compensation for its assets in Tanzania.

Tanzania does not deny liability but believes that Lonrho has put an inflated price on the assets, in view of the record of losses by some of the firms concerned (e.g. Riddoch Motors). There were previously protracted negotiations with Lonrho when its sisal, newspaper and printing companies were nationalised. This is in contrast with negotiations with other firms on compensation for nationalisation of assets and suggests at least that Lonrho is not acting responsibly.

The British Minister responsible for overseas aid, Neil Martin, M.P., answering a recent Parliamentary question, gave an assurance that Lonrho’s complaint would not affect the level of British Aid to Tanzania.

Food Situation in Tanzania.
The July Newsletter included a note of the effect on one area of the exceptionally heavy rains of 1979 and, in another section of this letter, there is an estimate of the total cost of damage to crops, roads and bridges. The rice crop was particularly hard hit and very little was harvested. However, the President made it clear in a speech on 1 September that, although little foreign exchange could be spared to import rice or wheat, there would be enough of other foods for everyone, and there was no danger of hunger.

Tanzania’s growth in food production, averaging 3.5% to 4% p.a. between 1967 and 1978 (and probably in the range 6% to 10% between 1975 and 1978) has been one of its successes, even when compared with population growth. The continuing problem is how to maintain the increase in good crops and combine it with a similar increase in export crops. So far price changes have only produced an increase in one at the expense of the other.

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY FOR GRAIN STORAGE

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Report of a pilot project by the Community Development Trust Fund of Tanzania in collaboration with the Institute of Adult Education and Economic Development Bureau, and funded by the Government of the Netherlands.

The January ’79 Newsletter included an account of the contribution made by the I.A.E. to Ruvuma Region. This Report on a project carried out at the village of Bwakira Chini in Morogoro Region also demonstrates the vital contribution which can be made to effective development by the proper use of the techniques of adult education.

This project was initiated in May 1975 when it became clear that, after two disastrous years of ’73 and ’74, the Kilimo cha Kufa na Kupona campaign together with reasonable rain, would produce a reasonable harvest, so attention moved from production to storage. It was known that losses of food before, during and after harvesting could amount to between 25% and 40% of the crop. Peasant farmers were well aware of the extent of their losses and recognised improved storage as being among their most pressing needs. Clearly there was the potential for substantially increasing the amount of food available for human consumption by improving storage methods, but equally clearly, the resources were not available to provide sophisticated systems at village level. C.D.T.F. took the view that the problem should be approached by villagers using their own knowledge and skills.

Morogoro Region was selected for the project because it produces all the important grain crops grown in Tanzania. Bwakiri Chini village consisted of 270 families: it was registered and had a village council which organised the purchase and sale of crops, a workshop, a dairy herd and a retail shop. The village had no collective agriculture and there was considerable variation in the wealth of its families.

The mass adult education campaigns, using radio, had demonstrated that it was possible to use discussion groups to involve people in development activity. The project team used this experience when it met the village council to explain their objectives. The council appointed a special committee on storage which continued the dialogue with the project team. At first the villagers were reluctant to talk because they were waiting for the team to produce their solution but, as it was realised that the team had come to learn, the villagers began to explain the methods they used and their advantages and weaknesses.

After each meeting, instead of writing minutes, an artist from the I.A.E. produced a large drawing to illustrate the points which had been made; this drawing would be used to begin the discussion at the next meeting. The team soon realised that the problem was even more complex than they had imagined. Grain had to be harvested while it was still moist because, if left in the fields until dry, it would be eaten by animals, especially wild pig. But stored damp grain was very vulnerable to attack by mould, fungus and insects. Hence, if it is to he stored, grain must he dried; if this is done outside, the store must be roofed against occasional rain, but there is also the danger of theft by monkeys and humans. It is possible to dry grain by spreading it in the roof space over the cooking fire, but this can only he none with relatively small quantities and it is liable to be eaten by rats.

Some of the richer peasants had already begun experiments with improved methods of drying their grain and, through a process of discussion and demonstration, the project team, with the village storage committee, were able to suggest adaptations and improvements which everyone could adopt. The villagers were themselves involved in the exercise of trying new combinations of old ideas to improve their design. Every suggestion had to take account, not only of cost of materials and labour time, but the changes required in traditional procedures.

Less than eight weeks after the arrival of the project team in the village, the discussions had stimulated some of the villagers to implement the ideas proposed. Individuals experimented with rat-proofed sun-drying structures, fifteen raised rat-proofed storehouses (‘dungu’) were erected and malathion dust (a non-persistent insecticide) was being used extensively for the first time. Materials which could not be obtained locally, such as paraffin tins (dehes ) for rat guards, malathion dust and nails were purchased by the village committee and sold through the co-operative shop.

When the time came for the project team to withdraw from the village, the committee realised that they had only begun to deal with preservation and storage of crops. They decided that they must continue to meet and work by keeping records of the effectiveness of the improvements adopted and help more people to make use of them.

The members of the committee were taken to Morogoro to take part in a seminar with fifty third-year undergraduates at the Faculty of Agriculture. The committee members found that they were able to answer all of the students’ questions because they had all been raised in some form in the discussions in the village. Suddenly the village committee realised that they knew more about the subject than those who had more formal education; by pooling their experience they had made themselves the experts.

The immediate results of the scheme were that the village saved some 12 tons of grain (valued at Sh.10,000/-) which it would otherwise have lost. More important was the understanding which the villagers achieved of their own systems and how they could be improved.

The project demonstrated once again the complexity of development problems – that there are no instant solutions, and the necessity for those involved in development to have a real understanding of the techniques of communication and a respect for the knowledge and experience of the people they wish to help.

John Arnold

DIGEST OF TANZANIAN NEWS

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It was not possible to supply a news digest in the last Bulletin, so the following covers the whole of 1979. For this reason, some interesting and important news items have been excluded.

UGANDA
Tanzanian and UNLF forces took Kampala on 11 April, and on 29 May the end of the war was signified by the capture of Arua, capital of West Nile Province. This was the last big town to be taken.

Tanzania had 40,000 troops in the country and the war is estimated to have cost more than a quarter of a million pounds a day. In July it was agreed that the soldiers would be brought home but about 25,000 remained, or were replaced. The Ugandan Foreign Minister, Mr. Halimadi, said in November that the Tanzanian soldiers were needed to train the new Ugandan army and maintain law and order. Also in November, President Nyerere reaffirmed that he would not withdraw the troops. He said it would mean an extra burden on Tanzania. But he denied that the war was the main cause of Tanzania’s economic problems (see below).

Libyan soldiers captured by the Tanzanian army were all released between July and November.

The war increased the size of the army from 30,000 to 75,000 men.

More than 400 Tanzanian and UNLF soldiers were killed in the war, but most died in road accidents. Tanzanian soldiers had a good reputation for their behaviour towards Ugandan civilians until the end of the war, then there began to be severe problems of discipline.

GOVERNMENT and C.C.M.
The Minister for Manpower Development, Abel Mwanga, said in November that 90% of the Civil Service was now manned by nationals in comparison to 26% at independence.

The chief executive secretary of the C.C.M., Pius Msekwa, was on a 10-day official visit to Britain in March and April as a guest of the Labour Government.

In November it was announced that seventeen officials of
C.C.M. in Kigoma had been dismissed for “lack of discipline”. After a two-day NEC meeting in Zanzibar, the officials from Kigoma town were ordered not to contest any elections for five years. According to Pius Msekwa they had refused to co-operate with the Government’s measures to combat the cholera outbreak in 1978.

THE BUDGET
The Budget in June laid great emphasis on food and cash crop development. The Government expects to spend Sh.14,659,000,000 on both development and recurrent expenditure in the financial year beginning 1 July.

With effect from 22 June, everyone travelling outside Tanzania has to pay a 20% surcharge on his ticket. All foreign vehicles entering the country have to pay 50% more for licences and local licences went up by 25%. Duties on certain imported non-essentials were increased, as were the prices of beer and sugar.

Prices of many imported goods increased earlier in the year as the result of the small devaluation of the shilling.

In September, President Nyerere said that economic conditions would make life very rough for the next eighteen months. Half the country’s income from exports would now have to go to buying oil.

To make up for the damage done hy the floods, Tanzania is importing 80,000 tons of food from Japan, Thailand and elsewhere. Earlier, shortages had caused black market prices to rise to four times the official level.

AID and FOREIGN INVESTMENT
The period has been dominated by the economic difficulties and the resultant disagreement with the IMF/World Bank. Following Mr. Mtei’s resignation, President Nyerere made a forceful speech at the Ubungo farm implement factory. He said that Tanzania will not abandon socialism and self-reliance. He said that Tanzania would accept assistance, but not at the expense of its policies. Some “quarters” were trying to pressurise Tanzania to change policy because of its economic situation. But Tanzania, he said, will overcome hardships without compromising its policy. Tanzania’s economic crisis was a result of the world’s economic system which continued to give the wealthy the power to control the distribution of wealth.

Britain is writing off Shs.57,000,OOO of debts owed by Tanzania. Shs.330,000,000 has been pledged for the year 1979/80. Britain is making a £8,000,000 grant to improve health services in Southern Tanzania, and the ODM is financing a feasibility study into a proposed irrigated rice scheme in Madibira in Southern Tanzania. Britain is also providing Sh.655,000,OOO for the Songea-Makambaku road.

Holland is making a grant of Shs.380,000,000 during the current Five-Year Plan.

The U.S. Peace Corns programme is starting again in Tanzania. The United States has also granted Shs.48,000,OOO for an agricultural training project.

AGRICULTURE
Professor Rene Dumont, in his latest study of Tanzanian agriculture, says that the country is “the best hope for African Socialism” but only if there are some fundamental reforms. He was again invited hy President Nyerere to go and make a study of the situation. His main points:

1. Bureaucrats must hold dialogue with the peasants.
2. Natural resources must be looked after better, to avoid erosion, over-grazing and deforestation.
3. Alternative energy-saving technology must he adopted, including
ox and donkey carts, bicycles, etc.

Professor Dumont said that, out of the country’s 8,000 or so Ujamaa villages, only about a dozen were operating efficiently on a cooperative basis. He also said the C.C.M. was too dominated by town people – it was time the peasants got organised to push their interests.

TRADE and INDUSTRY
The Bank of Tanzania warned in February that legal action would be taken against those who imported goods in contravention of exchange controls. People had been abusing the system and had been using travel and other allowances for the purpose of importing non-essential goods.

The Tanzania State Motor Corporation has placed an order for some 300 truck and bus chassis with British Leyland. The deal is worth £5,000,000. The vehicles will he assembled by Leyland- Albion Tanzania.

A boiler at the Bukoba coffee processing factory blew up in August, killing 14 people. The factory has been out of action.

TRANSPORT.
The Tazara Line has been disrupted on a number of occasions by floods and by attacks from the Rhodesians. But Chinese railway engineers expected to re-open the line in December. In November Dar es Salaam was congested with 70,000 tons of Zambian freight – double the amount for which there is storage.

Tanga Port is being expanded to handle half a million tons of cargo a year to relieve congestion in Dar es Salaam. The Chairman of Tanzania Harbours Authority, Mr. Peter Kisumo, said the cost of the scheme would he about Sh.20,000,000. Tanga would become the main port for Tanzania, while Dar es Salaam would mainly serve neighbouring countries.

ENERGY
The increasing cost of oil has given an additional spur to prospecting. Drilling is to begin around the Songo Songo Islands to find if there is enough oil for commercial exploitation. Natural gas has already been found there.

Two sets of measures were announced in August to conserve Petrol. The price of ton-grade petrol went up to Sh.33 per gallon. Then it was announced that petrol rationing would de introduced. Petrol stations would be closed at 9 p.m. and no petrol would he sold to private vehicles between Thursday night and Monday morning.

The National Development Corporation said in September that a study was being made to see if Tanzania could make motor fuel from sugar as in Brazil.

Chinese mining experts have discovered huge coal reserves at Ilema in Mbeya Region – more than 50 million tons.

RELATIONS with KENYA
The border with Kenya was specially re-opened in March or April to allow 100,000 tons of emergency maize supplies through to Zambia.

In May President Nyerere and President Daniel arap Moi met in Arusha to discuss relations. They agreed to allow the use of each other’s air space. Discussion on other outstanding issues continues.

The Foreign Minister, Benjamin Mkapa, told Parliament in July that the border would be reopened as soon as a solution to the question of the assets and liabilities of the East African Community was found.

RELATIONS with the U.K.
The Queen went to Tanzania on a state visit in July – her first ever visit. Among the places visited were Arusha, Moshi, the nearby game parks, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

Tanzania has ended the double taxation agreement with the U.K.

RELATIONS with ZAIRE
On 1 June, President Mohutu arrived in Arusha with 80 officials for talks with President Nyerere and members of his government. They agreed to set up a permanent commission to improve cooperation.

WILDLIFE
Poaching, for long a scourge of Kenyan wildlife, has become a major problem in Tanzania, especially along the Kenya border. The Mara Regional Game officer, Msindai Izumhe, said in November that 5,000 wild animals – mainly elephants and wildebeeste, died on the edge of Serengeti after their food supply had been destroyed in bush fires deliberately started by poachers.

Rhinoceros in Ngorongoro have been reduced to less than 50 by poachers. Tanzania now spends a larger percentage of its budget on conservation areas than any other country in the world.

OTHER NEWS
You can now dial Tanzania direct from some major exchanges in the U.K.

A ten-day forest fire on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro destroyed more than 25,000 acres of heathland and cedar forest in September.

60 people drowned in July when a bus plunged into Lake Victoria near Nansio. The bus was illegally overloaded.

In April, the Director of Broadcasting, Paul Sozigwa, returned to his former post as the President’s Press Secretary. His place at RTD was taken by David Wakati. Sam Mdee moved from State House to head the mass media department at the Institute of Adult Education.

Ferdinand Ruhinda, editor of the Daily News, and Costa Kumaliza, editor of Uhuru, moved to C.C.M. headquarters. Their places were taken by Uli Mwambulukutu and Wilson Munubi Bhukoli.

The BBC TV “Blue Peter’s” sale of coins and stamps raised £21,558 in May – enough to buy 1,000 bicycles for Tanzania medical workers.

The University is to spend about Sh.160,000,000 on new buildings including new geology and dental departments.

The celebration marking the 18th anniversary of independence from Britain was attended by President Pereira of the Cape Verde Islands, and the Prime Minister of Papua-New Guinea, Mr. Somare.

BOOK REVIEWS

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Towards Socialism in Tanzania. edited by Bismarck U. Mwansasu and Cranford Pratt, Tanzania Publishing House, Dar es Salaam, 1979, pp. x and 243, available from Third World Publications £5.95.

This book consists of the papers of a conference held in Toronto in April 1976 with some revisions and additions. Three papers discuss the role of the Tanzanian Government and its agencies; three discuss Socialism and rural development. Around these six studies comes a joint introduction by the editors and a concluding paper from each of them. The papers are generally lucidly and effectively written, free of jargon or pretension. For someone like myself who has been out of Tanzania now for ten years, they provide an admirable opportunity for catching up. There is no doubt that this is a book that most members of the Britain-Tanzania Society will want to buy and read.

I have three reservations, however, to my generally good opinion of the book. It is a pity that it has taken three years to appear. This is not, unhappily, an unusually long time after the event given the lassitude of academic publishing, but a book of this sort suffers more than most from such a delay. The writers were able to take cognisance of universal villagisation but they were not able to go far in assessing its consequences.

Then there is the problem of the book’s character as a debate. The publishers tell us that it is ‘written from a wide range of perspectives’; that ‘the viability of Nyerere’s approach is a matter of continuing debate’ among Marxist and non-Marxist scholars and that the book ‘includes vigorous statements from both interpretative schools.’ But this is a little misleading. In his concluding chanter Cranford Pratt lists a number of prominent ‘Marxist Socialist’ commentators on Tanzanian affairs and a number of ‘democratic Socialist’ commentators. Only one of the first list appears in this hook; three of the second. Many of the papers refer to the work of Shivji but he does not contribute; John Saul, who is identified as the most sophisticated of Marxist commentators and who is based in Toronto, does not appear either. In his final chanter Pratt debates with ‘ultra-left’ scholars. I am not certain whether any of the chapters in the hook fall into this category, but it seems doubtful. The result is that in order for the debate to take place ‘ultra-left’ positions have to be summarised by Pratt himself. It is hardly surprising that the book has not concluded the debate, which has been carried on with some vehemence in the pages of the Canadian Journal of African Studies.

Finally, I could not help feeling a little unhappy about the argumentative focus of the book – the focus on whether or not Tanzania is becoming Socialist. I do not dispute that this is an important question – or at least that many important questions are contained within it. But there seems at the moment a prior question about Tanzanian rural development. Certainly it will be important to discover how rural production surpluses are being distributed and amongst whom. What worries me, however, is whether villagisation is going to lead to a surplus at all. This massive feat of social engineering is also a massive gamble: concentrated settlement and block agriculture has never succeeded before in most parts of Tanzania and one would like to know what chance it has of succeeding now. Adolpho Mascarenas’ paper tells us something about the agricultural mistakes made in the process of villagisation. Mascarenas remains optimistic and I, too, since so much depends on the success of the villagisation, hope very much that it succeeds. But I would wish to see some informed discussion of the question of production.

All this meant that I finished the book wanting to know more and to hear more argument and to know what had happened recently. But then that is in its way a compliment to an open-minded, and honest hook.

Terence Ranger

‘African Socialism in Practice : The Tanzanian Experience‘ edited ‘by Andrew Coulson. Published by Spokesmen and obtainable from: The Review of African Political Economy, Bertrand Russell House, Gable Street, Nottingham. Price: £2.95

The debate on the nature of Tanzanian society and the validity of its claim to be developing on socialist lines is largely conducted through the pages of learned journals which are neither easy nor cheap to obtain. As Professor Cranford Pratt explained in his address to the annual meeting of the B.T.S. the Marxist critics and the social-democratic defenders of Julius Nyerere rarely actually engage in face to face debate. Indeed, it seems doubtful if they even read their opponents’ books. The audience reads or hears the criticism or the defence demolished on the basis of evidence to which most of them have no access. The British audience depends on secondhand information or sparse personal experience.

So we should be grateful to Andrew Coulson and Spokesman for producing, at a very reasonable price, this source book for the Marxist criticism of Tanzania’s development and policies.

The first section contains four policy documents, three by Nyerere – ‘The Rational Choice’, ‘Freedom and Development’ and” ‘The Arusha Declaration Ten Years After’ – and the Mwongozo-TANU Guidelines which was originally published in Swahili and has not been readily available in English.

The remainder of the hook consists of fourteen case studies of development projects which describe in detail how plans were implemented and the difficulties encountered. The examples include the creation of an ujamaa village, the Dar es Salaam automated bakery and the management of the Tanzanian Publishing House.

The contributions provide valuable information and they not only make fascinating reading but are a considerable help towards understanding what has actually been happening on the ground in Tanzania over the past ten years, even for those who will not accept the authors’ interpretations of and reasons for events.

The political debate on Tanzania is not simply of academic interest; ideas which gain acceptance eventually shape policy. ‘Tanzania’ has become an idea, an inspiration and an option for other Third World countries. If that idea is destroyed, whether by Marxist philosophy or the dogma of the I.M.F., there will be profound consequences for the future of the Third World.

Friends of Tanzania need the information which this book contains in order to be able to understand and take part in the debate.


‘Tanzania’s Ujamaa Villages’ by Dean McHenry Jr. reviewed in the July, 1979 Newsletter, is obtainable from:
Institute of International Studies
University of California, Berkley, CA 94720, USA. Price: $5.95