Coulson: On Synthesis of Institutional Diagnostic

This is Part 8 of a series of commentaries on Udadisi Blog entitled Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic: A Response and Comments By Andrew Coulson

Chapter 8. An Institutional Diagnostic of Tanzania: Synthesis

P.2 [of François Bourguignon and Samuel Wangwe’s Synthesis ] returns to “the uncertainty about what is and what could be the growth engine of Tanzania”. In the last 10 years, my observation is that gold, tourism, and mobile phones and their associated technologies, such as M-Pesa, have been growth engines. Along with the five large gold mines, a huge artisanal mining sector developed, employing a million people, almost all in an area that otherwise would have been depressed because of the failure of the cotton sector. The extreme price fluctuations in the price of gold are well known, but if the international economic system faces another crisis, as is likely, the value of gold will rise – so perhaps it is not a bad sector to be in (though more attention should be given to environmental consequences and health risks).

The growth in tourism benefitted otherwise challenged areas – areas accessed from Arusha and Zanzibar. It was assisted by political uncertainty in Kenya and the wars on its Northern border, and the opening up of opportunities for Tanzania to develop relationships with South Africa. Tourism is dependent on long-haul flights, but if the country remains stable it should continue to be dynamic.

The growth of mobile phone coverage and innovative uses has made Tanzania and Kenya world leaders in some aspects. There is no obvious reason why it should not continue. In addition, large areas of Southern and Western Tanzania experienced a green revolution with an unprecedented expansion of hybrid maize, cashewnuts, potatoes and flue-cured tobacco. Transport also expanded, especially local transport by daladalas (small buses) and motor cycles (in every village and along major roads). 

The big question is whether the country should have an industrial strategy which goes beyond creation of basic infrastructure, or whether it just leaves this to market forces. Justin Lin argues for a version of the Korean (or Ethiopian) strategy, finding tradeable products where the costs of production are a little below that of the main existing producers, and investing in those areas to supply world markets (with domestic markets only supplied incidentally – i.e. not the present strategy which is basically the colonial strategy of import substitution plus processing of agricultural or other products to increase the value added before export).

Murufuki et al.’s book point out that the governments in the Asian tigers played a key role in creating strategies and ensuring they were implemented. Tanzania briefly tried to emulate Malaysia, with Big Results Now (BRN), but Vietnam, with its period of socialist industrialisation is a better model. So far, I have seen little recognition that Tanzania can be competitive in some world markets (and has to be so if these are to be part of its growth engine) and has the single-minded determination to achieve that shown by the Asian tigers. Mufuruki understands this, which is why his book so interesting.

The well-written section on corruption reinforces points made in Chapter 1 and elsewhere.

The point on p.6 about the need for much stronger regulatory bodies is very correct. But to work they need a functioning legal system, and skilled and experienced staff who can collect evidence and present it in court successfully when faced with extremely hostile and highly-paid barristers. It also requires a willingness to face local vested interests i.e. those who have no wish to be regulated. The failure of the attempts to maintain cotton production in the Lake areas by introducing contract farming is a good case in point: the efforts of the regulator (the Cotton Board) were sabotaged by small private ginners who were prepared to buy and sell low quality adulterated cotton.

Chambi Chachage’s thesis has much to say on the slow emergence of an African business class, and, overall, its preference for making money from trade or the media to traditional manufacturing.

The points about centralisation bias and the distrust of market mechanisms and the private sector are extremely well taken. There needs to be a willingness to let go, to trust other people provided institutional systems are in place that will deal with irregularities or crimes when these are identified. The private sector itself will have to take more centre stage than it has been allowed to, at any time in Tanganyika or Tanzania’s history. That is why Mufuruki’s and Chambi’s works are so significant.

What is so Authentically African about Kitenge?

What is so Authentically African about Kitenge?

Diana Kamara

For both Africans and Africanists, African prints (from here on kitenge) tend to be a sentimental topic because of the symbolic value we attach to it. Very few studies on kitenge I have seen do go to the roots of historical development of the textiles industry and trade in Africa. It is in this context you find such an article - Can a Chinese import ever be authentically African? by April Zhu -  written with so much passion and a bit of romanticism without formulating the questions we should be asking about kitenge.

First, the lament of why the kitenge, our (supposed) cultural symbol and object is not produced in our respective countries (we don't usually go beyond the territory to say produced in Africa). This question other than awakening curiosity should not be a path to follow. This is for a simple fact that global circulation of capital and goods has been like that, especially after the rise of modern (overseas) empires. If we feel the urge to explain why we consume what we do not produce, then we may as well have to ask ourselves what do we produce and who consumes it, instead. We produce coffee, cotton, tea and many other raw materials. Do we therefore attach the same sentiments to our analysis of the raw materials we produce? Do you think somewhere in Belgium or Switzerland there is someone despairing about the chocolates they are famed for?

This question is also problematic because, first, it makes kitenge seem like a very important cultural symbol. What does it matter if I wear kitenge everyday and I am 31 years old, unmarried? Does kitenge come anywhere close to other symbols of accomplishment and success as cars, higher degrees and prestigious jobs? Fanon put this question to rest many years ago when he observed that those who hold onto cultural symbols seek to self-rehabilitate than to understand the cultural dynamics unfolding rights before them.

Second, concerning the historicity of kitenge, it still baffles me when I hear the cry about to whom it belongs without giving enough weight to the colonial and now neoliberal side of the story. It is not enough to say it comes from China; it could come from South Africa if the capitalists there are assured of their surplus. The colonial history of textile was of violence, especially in India, the biggest textiles producers at the time. In West Africa the scramble included competing and securing posts for supply of textiles in the 'hinterland'. I don't know who started that Holland and now China story because, by the time the Portuguese arrived in East Africa, there were trade routes all the way to Zimbabwe supplying textiles from India. Our postcolonial states only ventured into kitenge production because of the potentials for markets than it’s cultural value. (I can't speak for other countries but I know this about Tanzania). In short, we can worry about the cultural value but, historically, capital follows surplus.

Third, when we focus on the value kitenge has in our culture, we forget the other side of the story: production. What do we know about the industries that produce kitenge? If kitenge is so important in our sense of being as a people (of a society, nation or continent), should we not worry about the society whose poverty subjects them to unhealthy working conditions somewhere in Asia? It is probably produced in similar conditions as any other textiles. We should then extend our distress to our curtains, bedsheets and undergarments.

So, if we must ask why our kitenge is not produced locally, we ought to be able to juxtapose its social value with the history of imperialism and capitalism.

Sylvia Tamale on Feminist Pan-Africanism-25/09/2019

COULSON: ON THE POWER SECTOR

This is Part 7 of a series of commentaries on Udadisi Blog entitled Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic: A Response and Comments By Andrew Coulson

Chapter 7: The Power Sector

Since 1992, The Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO) and the Bank of Tanzania (BOT) have been involved in a series of corruption scandals, in which money was syphoned off to finance political campaigns. Before that, and in the early years of Independence, TANESCO was a model parastatal, drawing, I guess, much of its inspiration and practice from the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) in the UK. It was not short of money, so paid its staff good wages and delivered a quality service, to those who could afford to pay for it, mainly in the cities (especially Dar es Salaam) and towns, and in rural areas where there were processing factories for tea, sisal, sugar that needed reliable power supplies. Supply was increased to meet demand, so regular power cuts were much less than now, and faults were usually repaired reasonably quickly.

A consequence of the recent history of corruption is that the writing in this chapter [by Catrina Godinho and Anton Eberhard with discussion by A. Estache ] is noticeably more strident than earlier chapters.

The chapter is about the power sector. If it had included more about energy policy generally, it would have needed a consideration of how to phase out the use of charcoal as the main source of energy for cooking – which is having devastating effects on forests, as trees are cut down in more and more remote areas, but also on public health as families breath in the smoke, in homes where the fuel is burned in the main living area, but also in urban areas such as Dar es Salaam where it is a major contributor to the air pollution often visible when driving down the hills towards the city along the Morogoro Road. This will, in a generation or so, lead to an epidemic of lung cancer. On the other hand, charcoal production is a major provider of employment, and one that unskilled people can take part in. There are also powerful vested interests that control the urban trade. So it is a daunting task even to hold production where it is now.

There is also little in this chapter about global warming [there is a feeling now in the UK that this language is too gentle – better to call it global heating or climate emergency]. If a chapter on the power sector had been written for a Western country, this would have been a central theme. Is it not patronising to imply that Tanzania can stand aside from this – when manufacturing and transport across the whole planet is being re-engineered to use less carbon?

The key source of energy for generation of electricity in Tanzania should be solar, as suggested by Estache in his commentary on the chapter and Mufuruki et al. (Tanzania's Industrialization Journey, 2017). Estache includes references on renewable energy solutions, low cost solar power, and mini-grids, but does not provide much detail. These can be far more than add-ons in semi-rural areas far from the main grid. In the UK farmers are converting large fields into solar generating stations, and wind is now the cheapest source of electricity. Tanzania has reliable sun and regular 12-hour days and land which is not suitable for agriculture and can be converted into solar farms. This is one of the main proposals in the Mufuruki book. The technologies for storing heat or electricity are improving rapidly, e.g. storing heat as hot water, or hydrogen, and mega-batteries, and Tanzania also has reserves of hydro power which could be kept back for use in the nights, and regular winds. What Tanzania should not do is use gas to generate electricity, which will contribute to global heating but is also a low-return use of the gas.

Mufuruki et al. suggest (on p.88) that the state should make a commitment that that every household should have at least 150-200 watts of electricity by 2025 – sufficient for basic lighting, domestic appliances such as fridges, some cooking, and the running of basic tools such as drills or welding machines or water pumps. In most places this would come from solar, and it would be delivered by the private sector - providing an important new source of employment in the manufacture of the panels as well as in their installation and maintenance.

In larger settlements it makes sense to network the houses and for the provider to supply the machine that convert DC current to AC, so that any surplus can be fed back into the grid, with the town or village getting paid (on a “buy-back tariff”) and making useful income. In many advanced countries such as the UK, this is resisted by the major interests that supply electricity who much prefer a few large power stations, but these vested interests need to be challenged, and the sooner the better.

The chapter does not discuss Steigler’s Gorge. President Magufuli has made it a priority. He tore up the contract with the Brazilian company Odebrechtthat Kikwete had negotiated, and signed a new contract with an Egyptian contractor where the financing is not included. The preliminary work has already led to thousands of trees being cut down, and great intrusion into the Selous Game Reserve. The environmental case against it is formidable – not just the loss of trees and habitats but the loss of the highly productive agriculture in the flood plain, and both inland fisheries (which will be lost because the ox-bow lakes will become saline) and sea fisheries (because there will be less nutrients in the water). If smaller dams are not built on tributary rivers, the Steigler’s Gorge lake will fill up from silt running off the land, especially if global heating leads to more big storms in the dry seasons. 

Benno Ndulu has strong views about the likely downsides of the dam – he was employed as a research assistant and co-authored a paper about it, when a masters student in the 1970s. The issues have not changed since then. Except that population is much more, and that no-one at that time envisaged a standard-gauge electrified railway, which if it is successful, and runs trains at high speeds, will require a lot of electricity. Or the extent of global heating. Antonio Andreoni, at a Britain Tanzania Society seminar in London, suggested that the Tanzanian state is happier dealing with a single large supplier, and a single contract, than with many smaller suppliers each with a contract to be supervised and monitored. If this is correct it is another illustration of the State being reluctant to trust the private sector. (For my summary of points made at the seminar, see https://www.britaintanzaniasociety.co.uk/xxx/).

It is easy to understand why this chapter is more strident than the other chapters. Yet care should be taken about generalising from this. Some of Magufuli’s interventions have had spectacular results. By going eyeball-to-eyeball with Dangote, he achieved much lower prices for cement, to the great benefit of all involved in construction. His intervention to publicise the illegal export of mineral sands led to major concessions from Acacia. He was prepared to tear up contracts with Odebrecht for Steigler’s Gorge, and with the Chinese for the Liganga/Muchuchuma iron ore/steel/titanium/ vanadium/coal development in the SW of the country. He achieved much lower prices per kilometre for the standard gauge railway than in Kenya. If this can open up the corridor from Uganda (and Burundi and Rwanda) to the Tanzanian coast, there will be many benefits from cross-border trade.

The writers seem disappointed at the end of Big Results Now (BRN), which was innovative both in its involvement of Malaysian technocrats from PERMANDU, their Management and Delivery Unit, and the use of “labs” in which groups of experts were almost locked away until they had come up with key proposals for their sector. One of these was Energy, interpreted as electricity, another was Transport, focussed on the port of Dar es Salaam. But BRN was abandoned in 2016. Why? Probably the main failure was the lack of any link between those who created the plans in the labs, and those expected to implement them. This had the consequence that the plans kept being modified, and the benefits of concentrating on a few key issues were lost. Whatever the reasons, Tanzania needs to learn the lessons from what happened.

Last but not least, I think the time has come when we should all be careful how we advocate the “standard model” for countries like Tanzania. PFI (the Private Finance Initiative) is now thoroughly discredited in the UK, where it started, and from where it was promoted and exported to other countries. It led to many overpriced contracts. It trapped clients into very long-term links with contractors which were often dysfunctional and inflexible. The contractors themselves, such as Amey in the UK, are rushing to get out of PFI contracts before they have to meet very high costs towards the ends of their lives, or not meeting their obligations and having to cope with the resulting lack of trust and legal claims. It is very clear that contracting out can fail badly, sometimes if the client does not have the expertise to supervise the contract properly, or if the contractor is so determined to make money that costs are cut and quality is not maintained. More and more contracts are being brought back in-house (in the UK).

Advisors and academics should not advocate failing models to African countries, or at least not without very strong qualifications and warnings.

Barbaric!

Barbaric!

We thought it was for liberation and development,

We thought it was for independence, freedom, peace and democracy,

We thought it was for diversity, tolerance and progress,

That’s what we signed up for, didn’t we? 

It’s what we fought for!

Now tell me my comrades,

Were we promised restraint,

And being served with a siege,

By the tyranny we did not foresee,

To which subservience is sacred!

Oh! Tell me they were dreams and fantasies?

For now we have to fight again, just to breathe,

Only that we can see, hear, smell, 

Taste and touch,

A barbaric fight indeed, just for our life!

@Warumu

12/09/2019