In July, 2016, former President Jakaya Kikwete voluntarily resigned his position as national Chairman of CCM, in order to clear the way for President Magufuli to replace him. And within only six months of his assumption of that office, Chairman Magufuli had already demonstrated his special leadership skills, when he introduced “tsunami-type” organizational changes in the party; whose main thrust was to reduce the number of members of the party’s decision-making organs, particularly the National Executive Committee (NEC), whose membership was reduced drastically from a high 388 members, and brought down to a low 163 members. This reduction in numbers was also done throughout the party’s leadership structure.
The introduction of fee-free education
The provision of free basic (primary and secondary) education was among the many pledges made by President Magufuli during his 2015 Presidential election campaign. And, indeed, very soon after assuming office, he introduced the popular ‘fee-free education’ policy, which provided great relief for poor families, and guaranteed the right of education to every child; and whose immediate implementation led to a vast increase in student enrolment of students in Primary and Secondary school, as well as in Secondary Schools.
This then necessitated the construction of new Primary Schools, plus a large increase in the provision of school desks; and the renovation of a similarly large number of old Secondary schools, plus the construction on a substantial number of Secondary School dormitories and laboratories.
According to information revealed in President Magufuli’s speech dissolving the 11th Parliament; all of these projects were undertaken and completed in record time.
The ban on political rallies.
In June, 2016, President Magufuli imposed a ban on endless political rallies by political parties, including CCM. This action was severely criticized by some of the Opposition parties, except the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), whose Chairman, Augustino Lyatonga Mrema, issued a statement supporting the President’s ban. “such endless politicking is not in the interest of the people” said Mrema. “The people out there are only interested in improved social amenities such as education, health care, clean water and other infrastructures, not endless political rallies”.
The Catholic church, in my view surprisingly, also joined the band wagon of condemning the President’s action, when the Tanzania Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement, falsely asserting that “uamuzi was Serikali wa kuzuia mikutano ya hadhara ya vyama vya siasa, ni kinyume cha Katiba ya nchi”; which means that “the Government’s ban on public rallies by political parties is unconstitutional”.
That, obviously, was their own interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution, which, of course, is not the bible truth, and can therefore be challenged, without necessarily challenging their constitutional right to express their collective opinion, which is precisely what they had done. I personally did that by writing an article for the DAILY NEWS, which was aimed at presenting a different opinion on that matter, which may be summarized as follows:-
That, obviously, was their own interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution, which, of course, is not the bible truth, and can therefore be challenged, without necessarily challenging their constitutional right to express their collective opinion, which is precisely what they had done. I personally did that by writing an article for the DAILY NEWS, which was aimed at presenting a different opinion on that matter, which may be summarized as follows:-
“Political parties have a definite and proper role to play, which is defined in the Political Parties Act (no. 5 of 1992) as follows: “to participate in elections, by putting up, or supporting candidates, to such elections”. Admittedly, the words ‘participating in elections’ also include organizing numerous campaign public meetings or rallies; but these, according to law, must be organized only within a given time frame, which is decided by the Electoral Authority; and certainly NOT endless public meetings at the discretion of the political parties themselves!
I further submitted, that there are two distinct stages of political competition between political parties; participation in the election itself is the first stage. But when that stage has been completed, political competition moves to Parliament, which is the second stage. Both these stages are strictly controlled by the relevant authorities and the applicable laws and regulations; and cannot be carried out just randomly, through endless political rallies”.
As the Holy Bible says in Ecclesiastes, 3.1, I – 8; “To everything thereis a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven”. Election time is the most appropriate ‘season’ for political rallies.
President Magufuli’s first Government budget.
President Magufuli literally “hit the ground running”, with his first Government budget, 2016/2017.
There were two significant aspects: One, the unprecedented large ‘size’ of this budget, that was allocated for development expenditure; which this time, was a high 37% of the total budget. Two, was the extraordinary departure from the ‘donor dependence syndrome’. This was manifested by the fact that 82,3% of the development budget was to be raised from internal sources; obviously in part implementation of the Arusha Declaration’s call for self-reliance; and thus effectively debunking the concept of excessive dependence on foreign donors.
And because of his continued success in increasing Government revenues, the size of the Government annual budget continued to increase during the whole of President Magufuli’s first term in office. Having started with 29.54 trilion in 2016/17; the budget size increased to 31.7 trilion in 2017/18; 32.48 trilion in2018/19; 33.11 trilion in 2019/20; and reached 34.88 trillion shillings in his fifth-year budget 2020/2021.
It should be noted, however, that there were some significant shortfalls in revenue collections in each of those years.
And subsequently thereafter, in his resolve to get rid of the long-time donor dependency in financing the Government’s development budget; President Magufuli’s fifth phase Government has been implementing a number of new tax and revenue measures, which have resulted in an unprecedented huge drop in that shameful dependency, with indications showing that it is actually moving towards ‘zero reliance’ on donor funds for the development budget.
However, in one of his speeches during his scheduled tour of Mwanza Region during 2018, President Magufuli, strongly expressed his concern regarding the matter of the “NO” votes which were cast by the Opposition parties, rejecting his Government budgets of 2016/17 and 2017/18.. The President said he was wondering why they were doing so, considering the fact that these budgets provide the funding for almost all the development projects which are being implemented throughout the country, including those areas which they themselves represent in Parliament.
His comments prompted me to write an article for the DAILY NEWS, in which I explained, by giving cogent reasons, why the Opposition MPs action in this regard, is “absolutely perplexing and illogical”. I included a short historical background, which shows that the Opposition parties have been consistently voting “NO” in an attempt to reject the Government budget, in all the past years right from the first (1996/97) budget of the first multi-party Parliament, when I was the Speaker myself; and gave the following reasons to support my contention that such Opposition parties action is not only puzzling, but is also absolutely illogical:-
The adverse Constitutional consequences of rejecting the Government budget.
The country’s Constitution requires a new general election to be held, whenever Parliament rejects any Government budget proposals.
The adverse financial consequences to the MPS themselves. There will be no money to pay their salaries and allowances.
The adverse financial consequences to the whole nation. It simply means that all Government activities will have to stop, for lack of money to finance them.
The hopelessness of the action itself.
Considering that the Opposition in Parliament is , by definition, always the minority group in terms of numbers; they surely know that they cannot possibly succeed in achieving a rejection of the Government budget.
just because the Ruling party, which by definition, has the majority of members in the House, will surely defeat their attempt.
It is for these reasons that it becomes difficult to understand why the Opposition parties consistently and repeatedly, do that.
But they have continued to vote “NO” against all Government annual budgets, including that for the fiscal year 20020/21.
The events of the year 2017.
In April. 2017, Hon. Freeman Mbowe, the leader of the official Opposition in Parliament, while on a tour of Tanga Region, delivered a major speech on the occasion of launching a new Branch of his party, in which he declared that “President Magufuli will be a one-term only President, because his rule does not care about human rights”. He further said that “we made a big mistake in electing him, and should he win a second term in 2020, I will retire from politics”.
Wow . . . Mbowe “will retire from politics if President Magufuli wins a second term”? This quickly reminded me of Charles de Gaulle, the well-known French Statesman, who is on record as having said that “since a politician never believes in what he says, he is surprised when others believe him”. But I prefer to believe that Hon. Freeman Mbowe believes in what he says, because he is an honourable member of the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania.
I am therefore waiting to see the fulfillment of his solemn promise, “to retire from politics” at the end of October this year, when President Magufuli sails comfortably into his second term as President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Putting the Mining sector in order.
To put something “in order”, means ‘to remove the state of disorder which was previously existing’. It was during the year 2017, when President Magufuli demonstrated his great leadership talent in the management of the country’s mineral resources; when he unveiled his innovative idea of introducing entirely new legislation, aimed at “putting the country’s mining sector in order”.
To start with, President Magufuli had appointed two specialist committees of experts in this field, to investigate the general state of affairs regarding the mining sector. These committees had revealed the “massive thievery and deception” that was being perpetrated by certain specified foreign mining firms operating in the country, being a result of faulty mining contracts, and inappropriate applicable laws. The President had worked hard on this Report; as a result of which, on Monday, 3rd July 20017; the Parliament of the United Republic enacted two historic laws relating to the mining sector. These were:-
(i) The Natural Wealth and Resources Contracts (review and renegotiation of unconscionable terms) Act, 2017; and (ii) The Natural Wealth and Resources (permanent sovereignty) Act, 2017. These two were closely followed by the enactment of a third law, The Written Laws (miscellaneous amendments) Act, 2017; which made important amendments to six other laws, whose overall objective was to strengthen the Government’s supervision and control of the mining sector and its allied sectors of oil and natural gas, so as to improve Government revenue collections from those sectors.
These new laws heralded a completely new economic era, which will permanently protect our country’s natural resources, and safeguard the welfare of Tanzanians.
(will continue next week)
piomsekwa@gmail.com / 0754767576.
Source: Daily New & Cde Msekwa himself.
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