We just want our loot back

AS teenagers, my siblings and I were one day caught in some mischief, prompting pops to deliver one of his then infamous lectures. In his own loving way, after punching holes in our juvenile attempts at defence, he ended the lecture on a high note by telling us Kiswahili, wanangu, nikiwapa kidole msichukue mkono mzima.

In English it may roughly translate into ‘my children, when I offer you a finger do not go for the whole arm’. I shall not divulge details of our mischief here lest I get into trouble with my senior siblings. But the moral of the story is that one should learn to appreciate whatever little is given to them, especially when they have not earned it.

Here I am now appreciating everything I have been blessed with. I thank the Almighty for just being alive, considering all the things I have had to go through lately. I also thank all those who had shown better character than that of my own and expressed concern for my welfare.

After the brief moment of sentimentalities, I cannot help but note that it had been a week of its fair share of twists and turns. This week president Jakaya Kikwete appointed three Members of Parliament. And just a day later he reshuffled the cabinet.

If we deserved it or not one may never come to know for certain. Still, if my opinion matters, I commend the president for his decision to reshuffle the cabinet. It has been a longer time coming. Most importantly, I commend the president for driving the point home that a minister being shown the exit is only a political statement. From now on technocrats too will be shown the door.

One former cabinet minister labeled himself in Parliament a sacrificial goat. In politics sacrifices are an order of the day. People and names will come and go, the institution will remain so as I profusely commend the president, we feel sorry for those who had to bite the dust, but I doubt if our hearts as Tanzanians are actually bleeding for them. In fact, we will get some good night sleep just fine.

In all honesty, we are a victim of our own devices. The sickness that is ruining us is corruption; all other failures are just symptoms. Tanzania has had countless ministers since independence and yet progress is still wanting. Naturally, we have to made strides since then because that’s what governments are supposed to do for their people.

But it is also evident that individuals have made far major leaps than the nation in questionable fashion. How one can remain contented after amassing wealth while denying her nieces and nephews upcountry decent social services beats me, but we are humans, we are capable of anything.

We should be thankful that God Almighty did not assign a Tanzanian to supply the air that we breathe for free. Those who would have failed to grease the supplier’s hands would certainly have not lived. And we would have coined a new terminology, something like ‘povercide’, for we certainly would have been decimated due to our poverty.

Corruption is so rife that it is not only confined to the public sector. A change of guard in terms of reshuffling cabinet ministers is no longer a cure. Our illness has metamorphosed into some very chronic disease for aesthetic treatment.

There is some kind of systematic patronage that makes it very difficult for people with the best interests at heart for this nation to succeed in transforming our society for the better. Perhaps we could start with ending that. Academic merit alone should not be looked at as a factor when recruiting civil servants. An individual’s integrity and moral and ethical issues should not be overlooked.

How is it that public servants get to have so much wealth and property in so short a time after employment and there are no eyebrows raised? This alone is a manifestation of intractable corruption in our society. You can steal but just don’t get caught, heck, that’s what everyone does. That’s the attitude.

And when the hens come home to roost, they want the public to feel sorry for them. They look so pathetic when dragged to court but that never seem to us justice, we want the loot back.

Because after all is said and done, how does any ordinary Tanzania benefit from any changes any people continue embezzling public funds? We were eagerly waiting for the changes, and now that they have happened, we still go to bed hungry. But we are not angry; we just want the loot back, please.

We are crippled as others lie in wait

IT is understandable that, being humans, we make mistakes now and then. But when individuals or a group of people repeatedly make the same mistakes, it takes away the innocence usual associated to a mistake being innocuous when done once.

Repeated mistakes should be viewed as a character failure on the part of the doer or a very well and meticulously planned pattern of events executed with mastery and driven by sinister motives. Given deeper thought, the perpetrator should be taken to book as either a person with criminal intent or clinically insane. 

 

We all know that droughts almost always lead to famine, or the threat of one, and that heavy rains are likely to cause floods. But should the outcome of having an education system always mean massive cheating of examinations? Now that is unnatural, if you ask me!

When results of the national form four examinations were released early this month, newspaper headlines were very similar to those when the standard seven examination results were released last year. The number of students, like their younger brothers and sisters before them, caught in the act of cheating had increased. 

  

But I have also tried to muse as to how these kids can be capable of cheating on their own. Without any assistance from someone who knows better the students and the pupils, I find it impossible for these kids to succeed in their illegal endeavors if they are not aided and guided by adults.

Allowing the habit of pupils and students cheating in their examinations to go unabated is allowing society to cripple itself. No society has ever made any movement forward, as in progress and not otherwise, by trampling on education at will. 

Let us look at the pupils and students as individuals. The idea of educating these individuals, each to each, is to promote the individual’s innate abilities and to try and develop in the individual a sense of responsibility in and for his community and not just personal glorification.

Considering the ages of these individuals (pupils and students), it is important to strike the rod while it’s hot. We live in a competitive world today; individuals tend to look at acquisitive success as a better way, to some perhaps the only way, to prepare for a future. 

But instilling a sense of responsibility for community (society) and looking beyond individual’s success at an early age in our young lads and girls could be a way of deterring these young individuals from selfish inclinations and to steer them into thinking above acquisitive success.

This would never be accomplished by allowing cheating in our schools. Cheating does not only fail to prepare a child to think correctly and make sound and informed decisions on their own, it defeat the whole purpose of education. 

Albert Einstein once told a group of school children he met: “Bear in mind that the wonderful things that you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labor in every country of the world. 

All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, and add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common. 

If you always keep that in mind you will find meaning in life and work and acquire the right attitude towards other nations and ages.”

If the likes of geniuses like Einstein not only understood but also respected the need for hard work to whatever God-given individual gifts, why would we go and allow our children cheat in their examinations.

We simply are not doing enough to end the problem. As stated, students and pupils must be instilled with the fear of even thinking of cheating. They should be made to loathe the vice and anyone suggesting it. 

That getting a certificate alone is not enough, they should be taught, because one will have to prove himself/herself in later life, and they probably would not have the time to learn again because they never had that interest in them to begin with.

I don’t want to believe that we are a fried fish, not just as yet; we still can go back into the water and swim back to life. But it is going to take more than just a little wriggling to get us back into the fold. From the looks of things, we are too lax a people.

As is it, we already have a number of people in high offices whose capabilities are questionable despite impeccable, outwardly, academic credentials. Then one starts thinking perhaps the cheating in schools started some generations back we just didn’t know it. 

But then again, if that were to be true, we are indeed already a crippled society; we just don’t know that fact yet. And no matter how good we are at concealing our limping movement, others have noted, they are just lying in wait!

And are we not Tanzanians?

IT was an image of the year. On Thursday one Kiswahili tabloid ran a memorable photograph on its front page and it spoke volumes. Its uniqueness was in its simplicity. There she was, a lone Ms Anne Kilango (Same East-CCM) in the august House attentively following proceedings flanked by empty seats.

On a quick count, there were a little over 20 empty seats visible. And that was just as far as the photographer’s scope could reach. There were probably many more empty seats than they eye could grasp.

There are also other factors that may compel one to believe that there were many more empty seats. 

For starters, it was the evening session, a boring one for many who have ever attended Bunge sessions.

Secondly, legislators were discussing the African Youth Charter of 2006, something of little interest to many legislators. The charter was eventually ratified and Tanzania became African country 23 to do so. But that’s not the point.

The timing of the image could never have been better. The legislators had demanded, and their wish apparently granted, an increase in their sitting allowances. The least the public would have expected is a half-empty Parliament now that the MPs have had it their way.

Since it was the evening session when the image was captured, it is very likely that the ‘absent’ legislators had registered during the morning session as present for the day and pocketed the sitting allowance for half a day’s work.

Now imagine you and I doing the same at our places of work. And then imagine asking for a raise, after the fact.Now narrow down your imagination to a single profession, say, doctors. When they reported to work after a strike as present for the day but did not attend to patients it was called a go-slow. MPs do that all the time, no questions are ever asked. 

Yet they get to have exorbitant increases in their perks for all the wrong reasons. That they have more expenses than ordinary citizens, some kind of bull! My understanding is that a Member of Parliament is an elective post which one willingly decides to vie for. 

It is therefore exceedingly unbecoming when you find someone grumbling about the burdens and responsibilities that come along with a post they so bitterly fought for. If one finds it that burdensome, they know they can always leave, but I wonder why that is never considered as an option.

On another note, we are Africans, narrowed down to Tanzanians. We have one very common trait; extended families. If our honorable legislators feel that they should be compensated for assisting their voters, well, who is going to recompense the rest of us for assisting our kinsfolk scattered all over the country. Are we not Tanzanians? 

It was rather repulsive to use the assistance they extend to their electorate as one of the reasons they deserve an increase in their allowances. We all chip in now and then to help a cousin there, a neighbor here, an old friend there and so on, that’s typical African, and we don’t go about demanding repayment. 

And given a deep thought, the legislators are rather suggesting they be given more so they keep giving handouts to their voters, pressing them down deeper into begging, instead of find permanent solutions to their poverty so that they stop asking for assistance from their representatives.

One thing though the MPs would not admit is the fact that they simply brought it on themselves. Most of our politicians are blessed with empty campaign rhetoric; they give people false hope and in the end fail to deliver.

Payback is the mother. 

They are then forced to dig deep into their pockets because they always fail to deliver on their empty promises. They bite off more than they can chew. And when it starts to hurt, they never fail to find a ‘political’ solution.

More reasons have been given to justify the increment in MPs’ allowances; the cost of living has dramatically increased. But if the MPs have to eat, so do we; are we not Tanzanians? If they have to refuel, so do we; are we not Tanzanians? Now who is going to take care of us?

In retrospect, the decision by the MPs to increase their allowances and the fact that it has already been done may not have been a good investment. Doctors too demanded some unthinkable increases in their perks. When told to wait, what ensued was devastating. It’s not hard to imagine who else will follow suit.

It takes a great deal of the nation’s money and time to produce doctors and other professionals, unfortunately it does not always take much to make a legislator because the latter can easily be replaced by people from all walks of life.

The legislators should in the least have shown the public their human side by debating the matter in the august House, just like they want every issue of national interest to be treated. Instead they quietly made sure that they had it their way. 

That was a punch below the belt, but then again, it was the ref who threw it!

I miss kerosene lamps at grandma’s house

RECENT events have conjured some old memories. When I was an adolescent and below that, we would regularly go visit and stay with grandma in Tanga. The good old lady’s house had no electricity and we had to make do with kerosene lamps for light as soon as dark hit.

When you are young there are certain things that do not seem to be a bother. Sitting in semi-darkness and listening to the old lady’s narrations was a priceless experience that cannot be exchanged for anything worldly.

At a certain age even sleep would also not be held at ransom by the night’s heat. Because we would play all day and when the sun set in we would be called to take a night’s bath before supper and then it would be time for the evening’s story. 

Before you knew it, exhaustion from all the day’s juvenile activities, and they would be many, would take its toll. We would all fall sound asleep until the early hours of the next day. Every other new day, we explored new ways of having fun, which meant new adventures.

Life was good and things like power rationing would never really have mattered. We never had electricity to begin with at grandma’s house. Thus we never had any use for electrical gadgets and appliances. 

We totally depended on whatever came naturally to maximize our pleasures. Electricity, rather the lack of, could therefore never have been a source of boredom. All that we ever needed was a bright, sunny day and sound health to have all the fun in the world. 

Grandma’s house has since been improved. The grass-thatched two room cabin has been replaced with a bigger house with iron sheets which is connected with electricity. People residing in it now, I bet, have all the necessary electrical appliances many households cannot do without these days.

But the improvements at grandma’s house have its disadvantages. The human psyche has a nasty way of getting too attached to things it grows fond of. To offset boredom, we stay glued to our television sets for hours, surf the internet, play video games and things of that kind. 

We have literally become too dependent on things that use electricity to amuse ourselves. In a country where electricity supply is extremely unreliable, our amusements are guaranteed to be kept in check by regular power interruptions. 

As though the fact that services provided by Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco) are nowhere near good was not enough, they had to drop another bombshell. Beginning this Sunday, we have been told, electricity charges will go up by over 40 percent.

The power supply utility firm wanted to hike charges by up to 155 percent. They tried to reason with the Energy and Water Utility Regulatory Authority (Ewura) to no avail. In fact, many of the reasons they cited for wanting to increase charges proved to be untrue.

That alone leaves a lot to be desired. Why would Tanesco lie to justify the increase of power tariffs by such an unimaginable scope? It creates a lot of doubt on whether the power company will honor one of the requisite conditions to hike tariffs which is to improve services and reach more people.

Tanesco has to right many wrongs on its part before taking any pleasure in the increment of electricity charges. The public already feels like it is being shortchanged. We do not get what we pay for, and some who are forced to used generators when the only power supply in the country fails to deliver spend even more. 

As customers we also never get the feeling of being treated right. Tanesco has the legal obligation of telling us why, when and where there would be power cuts before they happen but that’s not always the case. Worse yet, holding them accountable after any problems due to power fluctuations is an Herculean task that may cost more than replacing a damaged appliance with a new one.  

We might understand the need for increasing electricity charges, but we also still feel that Tanesco has an obligation of making us feel that it is worth digging deep in our pockets to sustain them. The increment is just too much for many to bear.  

Those who have gotten so used to using electricity at grandma’s house may now need to revisit their favorite pastimes at home. Not only are your leisure times going to be kept in check by unguaranteed power supply, the latter is also going to be more costly than it used to be.

And since we can’t all just simply commit suicide, life has to go on. Soon we will start feeling like we have drifted backwards in time to the years before electricity was discovered. The next thing you know there is going to be a rush for candles, lanterns and kerosene lamps.

Anyone who is still living at grandma’s house with sleeping habits that are heavily dependent on assistance from electrical appliances such as air conditioning units or fans, should start thinking of sleeping outside. And then the neighborhood petty thieves get their field day. 

Not a total loss after all, it is the way of the world; someone has to benefit in some way no matter how much others are suffering. And then there is just that likelihood of a hike in kerosene pump prices in the not so far future. Oh! Almighty have mercy on us!

All movement is not forward

LAST year had its uncanny yet memorable moments. Enter 2012 and we relived some of the moments. It is a wonder how politicians seem to easily forget that it is always about the people they ought to serve and not about personal glorification.

This forgetfulness almost always leads to power struggle, and there are no draws in political fights, someone has to lose. Last year we witnessed a power struggle within the opposition NCCR-Mageuzi, and some left the ring bloodied while others celebrated.

Then Civic United Front followed suit, they too expelled their maverick legislator from the party following a wrangle with senior party cadres. The real reasons for the events in the opposition political parties may never be shared with us, but we have been told of the ostensible ones.     

I call them ‘supposed’ reasons because, for one, the parties have a penchant for keeping secrets, thus we may never know for sure if what they are telling us is just another way of misinforming us. Why would they reveal their secrets now?

And two, the allegations and counter accusations between the cadres make it difficult for an outsider to believe who is telling the truth and who isn’t. We are at a loss as which line to follow, the official party line or that of those dismissed from the party.

What we are never officially told is that all the fuss is a product of someone trying to tighten their grip on the buttered bread. It is a result of a struggle for top leadership position within the parties, pitting an incumbent against a few otherwise loyal followers who all of a sudden realized that they too deserve a slice of the buttered bread.

When one stays in a leadership position for too long, the trappings of power gets the best of him or her, this is what we are witnessing today. Such politicians start to develop the idea that being a leader is a divine right that must be protected by any and all means necessary.

It is my understanding that both NCCR-Mageuzi and CUF hold periodic party elections to elect their leaders. But to claim that these parties operate democratically would be a fallacy and only the naïve would fall for that.

Recent events have demonstrated just how muscles matter more than the ballot box. What the expelled CUF legislator, Mr Hamad Rashid Mohammed, was demanding has its validity. He wanted the party’s secretary general, Mr Seif Sharif Hamad, who also happens to be the Zanzibar First Vice President to relinquish his post in the party.

The basis for his claims is that since Mr Seif is now part of the government of national unity, with the blessings of the party, he has become incapacitated in his role as the party’s secretary general, and thus should step down.

Apparently Mr Seif wasn’t too amused by Hamad’s proposition. One thing led to another, push came to shove and the best man remained standing. The same story is said to have happened in NCCR-Mageuzi.

A group of rebellious party cadres toyed around with the idea of ousting the party’s national chairman, Mr James Mbatia. I bet they never foresaw or imagined the ferocity with which he would defend his position.      

Recent developments have been cause for concern as well. Perhaps it is a good thing that opposition parties have been on the other side of the fence this long. The power struggles have been a litmus test for their democratic credentials. 

They put themselves to the test and we were forced to observe from the sidelines. And it is sad to note that whatever changes that these parties have gone through do not amount to anything near growth. That certain individuals are regarded as indispensable in certain positions is unhealthy for any organization, let alone a political party.

A political party, of all organizations, should be seen as an entity that will never wither even with the departure of supposedly key figures. A party should be seen as capable of moving forward with or without self-proclaimed important figures.

True, some people will have more political clout than others in a party, but that should always be regarded as secondary. Of primary importance ought to be the functions of the party, among which is the orientation of party cadres to be able to fill top positions. 

Any serious party would want to be perceived as a government in waiting and not a grouping of bickering lots lusting for power. Leaders too must show a willingness to step down when the need arises. 

Whatever transpired within the parties that led to recent events, it doesn’t look like a movement forward. From a distance, it rather seems like a step back, but we’ll wait and see.