Poverty: Let new Katiba be a turning point

By Florence Majani

Going by natural resource statistics with which the country is endowed, Tanzania is one of the richest nations in the world.

But owing to the failure to solve the riddle of translating the resource wealth into basic needs, abject poverty continues inflicting Tanzanians unabated.

President Jakaya Kikwete and Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda separately admitted that they were surprised to see Tanzania mired in poverty amid plenty.

No one else exactly knows if the long journey on which the country has just embarked towards obtaining its new supreme law will serve as a turning point.

According to the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, all a country needs to rid itself of poverty is people, land and good policies and leadership.

Tanzania is home to about 45 million people and boasts of having a vast arable land, minerals underneath and water bodies on the surface.

Over a half of Tanzanians, however, live of below Sh. 1,500 a day. Their very peace and stability which politicians have all along been attributing to ‘good’ leadership and policies is at stake.

Increasing industrial strikes and political demonstrations and excessive force, which state organs often employ in quelling them, augur badly for the country’s cherished stability.  

For how long will people, who cannot access health services, balanced diets and decent homes, continue to live in harmony, one wonders.

Minerals

Several policies have been tailor-made to stimulate growth for the country to solve its poverty riddle only to see the precious stones turning into death traps.

The government clearly states in its 1997 Mineral Policy that it envisages building a strong, efficient and profitable mining industry for the benefit of all Tanzanians.

But almost a decade and half since the policy was devised, the expected milk and honey are barely reflected in on the Tanzanians’ tables.

Save for huge profits multinationals make, the sector has turned into a death trap to locals with artisanal miners being buried alive in their hundreds at mines.

The small-scale miners will remain poor and exposed to harsh and dangerous conditions as long as they lack planning, adequate mining knowledge and capital.

North Mara Gold Mine, for instance, has been a blessing in disguise to about 70,000 villagers surrounding the mine sold to African Barrick Gold (ABG).

The villagers languish in abject poverty, diseases and endless fatal conflicts as they look at the well-organised multinational company manning the large-scale mine exporting loads of gold from their backyards.

Their lives mostly relied on small-scale extraction of the precious stone before their leaders sold the mine to the investor in exchange for good health, education, roads and water supply services.

The empty promises prompt the furious villagers to mobilise themselves and forcefully storm into the mine and steal remnant gold stones, leading to fatal confrontations with riot police.

Youth resort to vandalism of the mine’s infrastructure apparently to frustrate the investors and force them to leave and pave the way for small-scale mining to resume.

The brunt of the sabotage saw acid leaking from the mine’s stockpile and a sewerage pond to Tigithe River, which is a source of water for about 2,500 villagers in April 1999.

Apart from attracting activists, experts, ministers and politicians, who have apparently turned the mishaps into a capital, informed decisions against the North Mara disasters are yet to be seen.

Agriculture 

The 1997 Mineral Policy of Tanzania has not managed as envisaged to develop socio-economic infrastructure in the agrarian rural areas where over 70 per cent of the population engages in agriculture.

The passion for producing food and cash crops among smallholder farmers in those areas is declining due to lack of poor farming implements in use and reliable markets.

Mtwara Region, for instance, is renowned for cashew production, but farmers cannot access the market, leading the crop to be piled up in warehouses.

Traders are reportedly swindling coffee growers in Mbeya Region by buying the crop at throw away prices when it is still in the farms.

Corrupt government officials in collaboration with members of the business community further frustrate the farmers by denying them of the subsidised fertilisers.

Only about 150,000 out of over one million hectares of land which could be irrigated is being utilised.

As Mwalimu Nyerere emphasises in his book Uhuru na Maendeleo - Independence and Development (1973), Tanzania needs an independent thinking for it to move forward.

It is time politicians, intellectuals and all Tanzanians went back to the drawing board to find out what exactly went wrong and chart out a way forward.

The on-going process of writing a new constitution should serve as an entry point towards re-building a Tanzania which is free from the development cancer in the name of egoism.

The Citizen (22 August 2012, 08:40): http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/magazines/32-political-platform/25092-poverty-let-new-katiba-be-a-turning-point