Sam Mchombo
On
October 29, the people of the East African nation of Tanzania went to the polls
to elect a new government. The elections returned the incumbent, Benjamin Mkapa,
of the ruling party of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) to a second term in office. The
elections proceeded peacefully, with problems confined to the islands of
Zanzibar and Pemba, where the supporters of CCM and of the Civic United Front,
apparently predominated by Muslim and Arab supporters, have had and did have
some clashes. In some districts in the islands polling had to be postponed to
the following weekend.
The
success of Benjamin Mkapa was anticipated and the results did not bring in any
real surprises. In itself, this should be something of a surprise in that
Tanzania, like many other African countries, has had to shift to democratic
practice, loosely translated as the acceptance of multi-party politics. Chama
cha Mapinduzi is the party that has ruled Tanzania since independence when the
late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was president. It was the only party throughout the
period that Mwalimu Julius Nyerere experimented with a socialist political
economy, and has remained the dominant party even after liberalization,
practically overshadowing the opposition parties that have emerged. It would
thus be expected to foster the impression that nothing had changed in Tanzania.
However, its continued dominance shows that it is a party that has adapted to
the times, converting the alleged failures of the socialist ideology to what The
Economist of October 21st, 2000, has termed "a modest success story."
The
success of Tanzania is claimed by The Economist to derive from Benjamin Mkapas
maintenance of "tight fiscal and monetary policies." In this, the
current president’s toughness has "helped Tanzania to wake up from the
socialist torpor into which the late President Julius Nyerere lulled it."
The Economist goes on to criticize Nyerere’s political and economic program,
stating that "Nyerere, who ruled the country from independence in 1961 to
1985, was a good man but a bad economist." The success of Mkapa, who was
elected in 1995, rests on the fact that, unlike his predecessors, Nyerere and,
later, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, he "has privatised and liberalised with
gusto."
In
brief, Mkapa has accepted the prescriptions of the capitalist ideology of free
enterprise, privatization, and so on. However, the "modest success
story" that is Tanzania is not entirely rosy because, according to The
Economist again, "corruption is widespread and blatant." If such
widespread and blatant corruption had been as rife and been the order of the day
during the period that Nyerere experimented with his brand of African socialism,
known by the Kiswahili word of Ujamaa, critics would have most likely linked
that to socialist practice. Its prevalence under current economic and political
practice is, according to conventional wisdom, an independent development,
merely detracting from the virtues of the system that is the basis of the
economic success, however modest. Still, corruption has become more pronounced
in this era of global capitalism.
Across
the southern border of Tanzania, in Malawi, corruption has been so rampant that,
as Tanzania was holding general elections, the president of Malawi, Bakili
Muluzi, was sacking his ministers and dissolving his cabinet. This was in the
wake of reports from the Anti-Corruption Bureau, which highlighted the
involvement of high-ranking officials or government ministers in corruption. In
Malawi corruption has, over the past few years, worked itself into the fabric of
general living. In August, a former college-mate, now a medical doctor, Dr.
Chakakala Chaziya, remarked, during a chance meeting in a Bank, that while the
country had made strides in the restoration of freedom of speech as well as
accommodation of other political parties, in other words, restoration of
democratic practice, impossible during our college years under the dictatorial
regime of Kamuzu Banda, the downside came by way of incredible rise of
corruption. "Corruption is just too much; things are not done according to
merit," remarked Dr. Chaziya.
Malawi
has certainly witnessed politicians being influenced by bribes to award
lucrative contracts to specific individuals and/or companies. The nadir,
however, was attained recently when high school examinations had to be
cancelled. High school examinations, used for admission into university
colleges, are prepared and distributed by the Malawi Certificate Examinations
and Testing Board (MCETB). Kept confidential until when they have to be taken,
they have traditionally been viewed as a reliable index of the candidates
academic suitability for college admission. Recently there was a leakage in the
MCETB, resulting in copies of the exams landing in public hands long before the
examination dates. "Such practice has, in recent years become widespread
and, virtually, commonplace, in countries such as Kenya, a country whose history
has significant parallels with that of Malawi," noted Wanjala Khisa, a
Kenyan citizen resident in California. According to Ms. Esnath Phiri of Blantyre,
Malawi, one local paper, The Malawi News, was able to publish an examination
paper a week before it was to be taken, triggering widespread rumors, apparently
exaggerations, that even street vendors were selling them alongside their wares
of wood carvings, bananas, cutlery, etc. The exam schedule was instantly
postponed, rescheduled for January 2001, but the president demanded that the
exams be ready by December.
As
the scandal unfolded it led to the revelation of other corrupt practices, such
as individuals collecting revenue for running non-existent private schools,
again not unheard of in Kenya. Al Mtenje of Zomba, remarked that the most
creative had to be the official who had funds released to him to hold an
international conference at a lake resort. No conference was held, none had been
planned, and the international delegates listed were pure fiction. Amidst all
these revelations of corruption the government had to run into yet another
embarrassment, that of having ordered, and received, a fleet of the latest and
top of the line model of Mercedes Benz limousines, for use by the government
ministers. With a price tag of around US$2.5m, the 13 limos constituted nothing
short of unconscionable expenditure in a country whose per capita, as noted by
Mark Weisbrot in a recent commentary, is less than $200 per year, where 60% of
the population, estimated at 10 million, lives below the poverty line, where
health services require massive support where they exist, more so in the wake of
the strain placed on them by the AIDS pandemic, and where the country’s
university has had to operate on periodic subventions from the government.
This
is even more pronounced given that the government of President Muluzi has made
"poverty alleviation" its catch-phrase or central doctrine. This
clearly belies or undermines any pretension to commitment to that agenda. Even
the British High Commissioner to Malawi, George Finlayson, could not desist from
expressing his (governments) disapproval of such expenditure on luxuries for the
privileged few. President Muluzi immediately reacted to the criticism of the
purchase with the order that the limos be sold to re-coup the expenses, and get
them re-directed to the poverty alleviation program. But, noted Kunjilika Chaima
of Montreal, Canada, the individuals who may purchase them will, most likely, be
the same ones for whom the vehicles were ordered in the first place.
In
the aftermath of these revelations, exacerbated by a report from the
Anti-Corruption Bureau, President Muluzi dissolved his cabinet during the final
week of October. It has since been reconstituted, with some ministers who, by
implication, may have been at the center of some of those allegations about
corruption, dropped from the new cabinet. Notable omissions from the new cabinet
were Chilumpha, Minister of Education, Chupa, Minister of Labor, and Mpinganjira,
Minister of Transport. This may ward off new headlines focusing on corruption
and try to appease donors but it does not tackle the root of the problem. What
does merit consideration, probably imprudent given current political realities,
is critical evaluation of the political economy that appears to sustain the
steady growth and development of corruption in such countries as, inter alia,
Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania.