The case of Tanzania

At the end of writing last week’s column I realised there was a large amount left unsaid. Often the ‘unsaid’ gets confined to the dustbins of history and memory, but in this case, unusually, since I reached out to the other side of the African continent, I should now stay there. Firstly, there is more to be said about Tanzania’s geopolitical position. Originally, as Tanganyika, it was allocated to Bismarck’s Germany at the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884-5, and reassigned, after World War I, to the British as a League of Nations Mandate. The British had been keen to secure control there as it signalled continuity of imperial territory from the Cape to Cairo, if you included Egypt and the ‘Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’. But that was a dream from the dangerous mind of Cecil Rhodes, and meant little in reality, although it did locate the territory more solidly in the region.

 Always seen as a poor relation of the more prosperous Kenya, there were varied efforts in the colonial period to federate with Kenya and Uganda, but were blocked by opponents of the settler lobby in Kenya, which exercised considerable influence until the arrival of universal suffrage prior to decolonisation in the late 1950s. Tanganyika was in fact the first of the three to become independent in 1961, and after the revolution overthrowing the Sultan in Zanzibar in 1964, merged with Tanganyika to become Tanzania. The uncertainties of revolution thus became submerged in the more acceptable socialism of President Nyerere, who also helped initiate an East African Community of the three (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), although it was an idea whose time had not yet come, in part because of the chronic instability in Uganda.

Tanzania’s own stability (based originally on single-party rule) was substantially helped by Nyerere’s pragmatic voluntary abandonment of power in 1985, which meant that the constitutional rhythm of change was established, bringing in a new elected president every ten years, from President Ali Hassan Mwinyi (1985-95), and Ben Mkapa (1995-2005) to the present leader President Kikwete, who has confirmed that he is stepping down next year. Although multi-partyism was introduced with the elections in 1995, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi has been solidly enough entrenched that it still can obtain around 75 per cent national support. What is important, however, as pointed out last week, is that no over-ambitious ruler so far has presumed to come up with ‘third-termism,’ which has helped further in the consolidation of a stable polity, in spite of having had to assimilate the oddity of Zanzibar.

The encouraging growth seen in the economy in the past thirty years, even before the arrival of natural gas, has been based on the political stability, but also on the progressive liberalisation of a formerly tight state socialism. Between 1998 and 2009 the GDP grew by 40 per cent. It has been the promising political/economic equation that has brought in strong foreign direct investment, and led to growing western enthusiasm which enabled it to be one of the countries in President Obama’s second African tour last year. Hence, also, the current growing British interest.

 During President Kikwete’s official visit here earlier this month he made reference, in a speech at Chatham House, to the potential of the new East African regional grouping (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, now reinforced with Rwanda and Burundi). “We are creating a wider market, an East African market… We are removing the constraints to our growth… If we succeed in developing this, well, Tanzania will be one of the giant economies in East Africa if not the giant economy in the region.” One example, apart from the gas prospects, the BCA meeting heard that tourism last year of the first time passed mining revenues.

 I have a little space here to return to the boom-town of Mtwara, my main subject last week. The article in The Economist made reference to the great expectations there, which have sometimes been disappointed in the past, such as the decline of the port, and the non-completion of the important road-link to the commercial capital Dar es Salaam. This is a piece of infrastructure that can surely now find an investor with one eye on the oil boom. One notes that there was a brief round of disturbances last year in Mtwara, protesting at the planned Mtwara-Dar gas pipeline because it was felt that the plant should be located at home. The Economist also mentioned the local ethnic group, the Makonde whom Tanzania’s education system have failed to equip with the skills that will be needed in the new economic situation. “The Makonde are often stereotyped…as dancers and guards, with a love of the sensual, a talent for wooden sculpture and a taste for bushmeat”. Although economic transformation can also bring social change, they may yet miss out. “Foreign mining companies have previously extracted Tanzania’s diamonds, gold and ores without benefiting the locals much”. The challenge says the article is “to make sure it does not happen again”.

Kaye Whiteman