Last week Hon. Zitto Kabwe (MP Kigoma North) requested the parliament to cancel all future payments of his sitting allowances* as he believes they are a waste of Government of Tanzania’s (GOT) resources. Many have applauded his move, and a few are still questioning if this was merely a publicity stunt. Be as it may, the civil-service ‘allowance-culture’ debate has been around for quite sometime. Lately we have witnessed a few outspoken voices – including from the PM Mizengo Pinda – to abolish the unnecessary allowances that government officials accrue when attending meetings, workshops outside their duty stations.
In the 2008/2009 GOT budget, around 7% was allocated for these type of allowances (USD 390 million). Despite the rhetoric, there has been no serious move to reduce this expenditure (the figure stands at USD 630 million in the 2011/2012 GOT budget i.e. 7% of the total budget). So, Hon. Kabwe has now set an example. Should others follow suit? Will abolishing sitting allowances and per-diems increase productivity in the civil-service?
Another area where we witness the popularity of civil-servant allowances is on trips abroad by GOT officials. To spark a discussion, the chart below shows the list of Tanzania’s delegation to the IMF/World Bank annual meeting held in Istanbul, Turkey in October 2009 . Tanzania’s delegation totalled in number to that of Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda put together! See this Policy Forum brief for more statistics.
How much do you think you (the taxpayer) spent for this week-long event? Are there follow-up studies by the respective ministries to substantiate the gains in attending these never-ending development meetings, or on their long-term utility to the country? I guess an additional in-house allowance fund might be needed to initiate such a study.
Related links:
- Reforming Allowances – A Policy Forum Brief
- Pressure on allowances increases
- Benefits and drawbacks of per-diems
*A Tanzanian MP receives T.Shs 150,000 (USD 95) daily, of which T.Shs 80,000 (USD 50) is sitting allowance. For the 2011/2012 financial year, T.Shs 11 billion (USD 7 million) is allocated to the Tanzanian Parliament for sitting allowances.
Joji, this is an excellent piece. Nashukuru sana for bring this to the forefront. My thoughts are kwanza, it does not really matter whether this was a publicity stunt or not, the result is certainly going to garner quite a bit of publicity (if it hasn’t already).
Secondly, Mr. Kabwe certainly knew about the rule about the House giving MPs their allowances directly to them (I say this because I do not presume that he is not well versed in parliamentary procedures, which he is very well versed). So I can only be left thinking that he did this in public protest, to which I applaud both as a citizen but importantly as a legislator.
About the World Bank meeting in Turkey, my retort would be the following;
Yes, the Tanzanians seemed to have a larger entourage than Jay-Z in his beloved New York, but the picture is not so simple.
1. Tanzania has a larger population than its East African counterparts, thus per capita, this entourage does not seem too bad (Imagine Jay-Z’s entourage [Tanzania] compared to Lloyd Banks [Rwanda]).
2. Tanzania also receives more aid in absolute terms than its colleagues (US $ [current] 2.9 billion vs 1.8 billion [Uganda], 0.9 billion [Rwanda], 1.8 billion [Kenya], and 0.5 billion [Burundi]). Please note all these are for 2009 and can be found from the World Bank data section:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ALLD.CD
3. Moreover, Tanzania also receives a significant amount as a percentage of its economy, i.e. aid is a huge part of Tanzania’s economy, more so than its counter parts, except Rwanda and Burundi (13.7% vs 11.4% [Uganda], 18% [Rwanda], 6.1% [Kenya], and 41.2% [Burundi]). Now considering that both Rwanda and Burundi not only have small populations, relative to Tanzania, but also small economies, relative to Tanzania. Comparing Tanzania and Kenya (the other big nation in the region), aid is significantly less important.
In the end, of course, I am not justifying the Jay-Z-style entourage, but I would caution about simply looking at the numbers and concluding that this was too large an entourage. Also, remember, that these delegates were invited, and thus even the donors might have seen the importance of inviting a larger entourage (I am taking a leap of faith here in assuming that they actually sent more invites to the Tanzanians than they did for the others, so please indulge me) for Tanzania, given its relative aid-penetration (my word, copyright please, lol) relative to its EA counterparts, and relative stability, both politically and macro economically.
Having said that, like Jay-Z, perhaps Tanzania deserves a huge entourage.
Tanzania is a nation of too many excuses and I believe we need to find ways to escape from this for any sort of progress.
I think TZ – a heavily aid dependent and an economically backward nation – should lead by example. If our dependence on IMF/WB justifies our flocking to their annual meetings, I believe we should be the first to show that we are actually learning something from this attendance i.e. the basics of Savings.
Let’s assume we are invited, and all expenses are paid for by our darling IMF/WB. In deed everyone in the cabinet with ‘finance, economy, or aid’ keywords in their job description goes. So, how active are we in such meetings? (viz. Minister of Energy & Mineral Mr. Will Ngeleja at WEF 2011). Are making sustainable proposals? Negotiating? Are we learning anything for 30 years?
To transport and dine (for a week) such a Jay-Z type of entourage costs a fortune, I think we would be better off asking the WB/IMF to substitute these costs for real-cash for use in development projects.
Yes, I am certain if we cut expenses on state visits alone this might not bring sufficient progress in liquidating underdevelopment. However, across-the-board cuts in such type of expenses in the parliament, ministries/depts and also in official trips abroad can create a positive change. This is if the savings are appropriately reinvested elsewhere. If aptly redirected, won’t the saved monies assist in reducing the tax burden experienced by the GOT workforce? How about increasing salaries? Or even in increasing productivity in the GOT itself?
These never-ending workshops and meetings abroad have the work-force always busy thinking about the next opportunity for an allowance, and have them spending less time doing actual work – thinking, creating, innovating, and leading. It’s that perpetual perverse structure that embodies most of TZ economy.
Sawa. But to be fair, we are not regressing, at the very least, and in fact are moving forward. Consumption and savings has grown, and in fact savings more so than consumption. With a burgeoning population explosion of young people, savings will only grow. Per capita income is still poised to grow at rates still high by any international standard. Sawa, government needs to be more efficient, but Tanzania’s government is not particularly any worse than most other governments duniani. Lakini sawa, this should not be an excuse, just trying to put things in perspectives. I for one, advocate for less government as is possible for any society.
On aid dependence, I disagree that this is bad in and of itself. Our nation needs huge amounts of money for investment outlays in roads, health and education. If the donors are willing to give it, let us use it to create genuine productivity which will see us out of this dependence. In fact, our budget is becoming more self sufficient with each passing financial year—- evidence that we are in fact becoming more productive.
At the end, we all hope Tanzania will become a great economic success story and I trust that this will happen and happen quickly, even under the status quo.
What would seem to make things easier is if the government provided the value – in words – of the different salaries paid to positions across the board.
For example: A sitting salary $100 is paid daily to members of parliament because it is estimated that on average, a member of parliament represents an average of 1000 people, and each day a member of parliament is estimated to contribute upto 10 cents of value to each of his/her constituents lives.