Tanzania president Dr John Magufuli
In late 2009, Uhuru Kenyatta, who was then Finance minister,
launched what was presented as a major cost-saving initiative. This was the
replacement of the government’s fleet of fuel-guzzler Mercedes-Benzes with a
less expensive German car: the Volkswagen Passat.
About 130 of these Volkswagen Passats were bought at a reported cost of Sh500
million. And for some reason this was considered big news indeed, locally as
well as overseas. So much so that I received a request for an interview from a
leading global media operation to provide some local context to this ‘reform’.On the appointed day, the call came through right on schedule. But from the very start, it was a very awkward interview. For the interviewer had already made up his mind – as foreign journalists reporting on Africa often will – as to what a Kenyan journalist would have to say on the subject at hand. He was really just seeking affirmation of his preconceptions.
When asked what I thought of the “brave decision” the Finance minister had taken, I answered that there was nothing brave about it, and it was fairly typical of the purely symbolic gestures that Kenyan governments routinely made to fool the public that there was progress being made.
This did not go down well with my interviewer. So he pointed out to me that there was clearly a reversal of previous (and wasteful) policy in which Kenyan governments had invariably bought the very latest and most expensive limousines for top officials.
I replied that this “new policy” was really a trivial side issue, hardly worthy of discussion. And that Kenyans had far more important things to worry about. I said: “It is mega corruption which is our real problem. The purchase of a couple of hundred Mercedes-Benzes is simply not that important.”
By this point, my interviewer could not conceal his irritation. That is why I remember my words so clearly. He repeated them to me very slowly: “Did you say that the purchase of 200 brand new, top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benzes, by a poor developing nation like Kenya would be, in your opinion, a matter of little significance?”
I told him that I had not said that it was morally justifiable. Merely that it was statistically insignificant. And then went on to explain: those cars cost roughly Sh12 million each. So 200 of them would cost the exchequer Sh2.4 billion. But our annual budget was around Sh500 billion. So the cost of all those Mercedes-Benzes, barely came to 0.5 per cent of that budget. And as these cars would be used for at least five years, the cost of equipping every last one of our top government officials with their dream limousine, barely came to 0.1 per cent of the overall government expenditure for that period.
Meantime, an estimated $700 million had been fraudulently squandered or directly stolen in the broader Anglo Leasing scam just a few years earlier. That came to about Sh60 billion at that time. Now that was serious money. That is what deserved our attention. And that was the kind of loss the country could not afford.
Let me just say that my interviewer, who had obviously had no idea of Kenya’s annual budget, and had probably not heard of Anglo Leasing, quickly ended the interview. And as far as I am aware, that segment was never broadcast.
But my point in explaining all this is to illustrate that the populist ‘cost-saving initiatives’ that new Tanzanian President John Magufuli has embarked on, cannot really qualify as part of what Tanzania, like Kenya, really needs: a serious economic reform agenda.
Rather Dr Magufuli’s headline-grabbing initiatives are very much like what Uhuru did with this scheme for dispensing with Mercedes-Benzes, when he was at the Treasury.
Such gimmicks are great for PR, and impress those who do not know how to count. But in terms of any potential positive impact on the economy – and especially in reducing endemic poverty – their significance is virtually zero.
Having a few dozen public servants flying overseas for conferences does not constitute a measurable setback for the Tanzanian economy. And stopping such petty extravagance will not make Tanzanians any better off.
It is mega corruption, and the failure to optimise on economic opportunities, that keep the ordinary Tanzanian as desperately poor as the average Kenyan. And it is precisely such complex challenges that presidents must have the courage to confront.
The writer is an editor | The Star
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