By The Citizen Reporters
Dar es Salaam. President Jakaya Kikwete’s attendance in yesterday’s G8 Summit in the US attests to how highly regarded he is in international community circles – a fairly sharp contrast to how he is viewed back home.The Tanzanian leader has cause to believe that invitations to high-profile forums represent an acknowledgement by the world’s political and economic movers and shakers that his administration has delivered and deserves praise within the country and abroad.
For President Kikwete is one of the few leaders in the African continent as well as the broader developing world, who catch the eye of those wielders of influence, the likes of whom he rubbed shoulders with at the reputed Camp David in Maryland.
The latest trip also serves to consolidate the record of the incumbent as Tanzania’s most travelled president - but a record that some quarters dismiss as a disgrace rather than embrace as something praiseworthy.
They attribute Tanzania’s current economic and welfare woes to the frequent, highly costly foreign trips by the Head of State - a viewpoint that is reinforced by the current high cost and standard of living.Added to that is the shaky state of the economy, growing rate of unemployment, occasional political uncertainties and social upheavals.
Misgivings over the trips are voiced against the backdrop of inability by the Treasury to pay civil servants’ salaries on time, and being continuously haunted by budgetary constraints. The usually big presidential entourages raise eyebrows over whether they yield tangible benefits, but word going around is that the fat travel allowances constitute a key pull-factor.
To this school of thought, Mr Kikwete has so far been a let-down and there is little hope of him turning the tables to turn into reality, his much-touted election campaign ‘prosperity for all’ within the remaining three years of his second and final tenure at State House.On an extreme note, the group has reached a point of dubbing him the tourist head of state, and darling of the donor community.
They wonder and fail to understand why donors could rate him so highly when many people in the country can hardly afford two decent meals in day despite possessing abundant natural resources. And despite Tanzania being the second top recipient of aid, the country is yet to mark credible economic growth rates that are required to uplift majority people from abject poverty.
His supporters say he has and he is doing a great job and deserves accolades of the development partners. However, some of them say he has not used his popularity and the country’s reputation in international diplomatic circles to the advantage of the nation.
“Our expectations of what President Kikwete was going to deliver were extremely high, and that set us up for inevitable disappointment. So, our aspirations have not been matched by the reality we experience,” said development expert Aidan Eyakuze of Serengeti Advisors in Dar es Salaam.
Mr Kikwete became president through a popular vote in 2005 after he scooped a landslide victory of 80.2 per cent but there have been voices that his popularity has since slipped largely due to disillusionment over his performance. Going by the results of the 2010 General Election, that could be true since he won the presidential race by 60.2 per cent, which is a huge percentage point slide.
“In my view, the President’s job was to sustain and deepen the country’s political and economic transformation that is essential to improving the totality of the citizens’ welfare. I believe he has delivered, under trying circumstances on the political front. We remain a peaceful, cohesive and free country despite the many deep social and economic challenges we face,” Mr Eyakuze told The Citizen on Sunday yesterday.
“The economic front has been more difficult. Economic growth is struggling to translate into shared prosperity. I am one of many who feel the country could grow faster by being more strategic in its collective investment in infrastructure (the hardware that underpins production), education (the human software that produces), and agriculture (for both income and food security).”
According to the development consultant, the recent record on roads has been very good and is helping to address the infrastructure jinx that continues to haunt the country. Despite his support to President Kikwete, Mr Eyakuze admits that the rail and power challenges seem to have almost defeated this administration.
He says education has benefitted from significant budget allocation but the learning outcomes, which are what students and their parents care most about, have been very poor. This needs a major overhaul if Tanzanians are to engage successfully with the 21st century world, he expounds.
“President Kikwete is being observed by the international community from an international perspective, not a domestic one. So, if they admire him, it could be for a number of reasons such as maintaining and deepening the freedom of expression and association and democracy in Tanzania. He has allowed the courts and the judicial process to prosecute those accused of corruption and he has presided over continued expansion in investment and economic growth that was jump-started by President Mkapa.”
The executive director of the Centre for Economic Prosperity, Mr Thomas Maqway, said that if the yardstick for international approval is based on the amount of aid received, then President Kikwete’s donors’ esteem is undoubtedly justified. Why? Because according to the Development Aid at a Glance 2012 report, Tanzania ranks the second in the world in the list of the top ten recipients of official development assistance.
On his part, economics professor Humphrey Moshi said it is disappointing that the president has failed to use his global trotting exposure and the country’s positive international image to transform the economy. To him, the problem is Mr Kikwete’s embracement of the IMF/World Bank development policies, which have never succeeded anywhere.
“The World Bank has been praising Tanzania that it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but still agriculture is yet to be transformed and the level of industrialisation is still very low. This is a flaw,” he said.University of Dar es Salaam political scientist Bashiru Ally termed Mr Kikwete’s regime as neither pan-Africanist nor anti-imperialist because it is there for safeguarding the economic interests of multinationals.
His development studies counterpart, Prof Gaudens Mpangala, said leaders who adore policies and accept whims of the international financial institutions are agents of powerful industrial nations that have been siphoning wealth from poor African nations. He called on African leaders to address problems of their people and stop safeguarding the interests of foreign capitalist nations for personal benefits.
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