ARTICLE "Congratulations on the progress of your administration, you have been a champion (beacon) on democratic reforms in this country and in that way we have strengthened our relationship and today it is part of the strengthening of the relationship between our two nations and under your leadership." These are the words of the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, when she made a state visit to the country on March 30 last year and was received by her host, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, at the State House in Dar es Salaam.
Kamala told President Samia that he realizes he has opened the
doors to work with opposition parties, has removed the ban on public meetings
for political parties, has strengthened the freedom of the media and has been
participating in democracy conferences. Those words reflect the way President
Samia made reforms on the political, social, economic and cultural foundations
and Kamala's words represent the international community's view of his
administration.
In this country, democracy stakeholders are analyzing the strength
and shortcomings of the reforms made by President Samia within three years of
his administration.
Samia has completed 1096 days since he was sworn in as President
on March 19, 2021, at the Palace of Dar es Salaam, after the death of his
predecessor, John Magufuli.
POLITICAL REFORM
One of the things that President Samia
did after coming to power was to make political reforms aimed at removing
obstacles and politics of hatred and introducing reconciliation, despite their
ideological differences.
In that, he started a dialogue with the
political parties in the country through the Council of Political Parties and
the main opposition party Chadema and created a Task Force that gathered the
opinions of the people and gave suggestions on how to solve the challenges
raised regarding multi-party democracy.
Some of the suggestions made are to
allow public meetings, grants should be distributed equally to all parties,
amendments should be made to the Electoral Commission and the process of
writing a new Constitution should be completed.
Part of the recommendations have been
implemented by the Government of President Samia, such as allowing public
meetings, improvements to the Election Commission, although stakeholders still
claim that they have not met the need.
As a result of these improvements, a
scholar at the Legal Studies Institute (LST), Professor Ambrose Kessy
interprets the leader's three years as more successful than challenging.
Professor Kessy says within that period,
President Samia has restored the freedom of the media, freedom of opinion and
even to assemble through public meetings of political parties.
Citing an example, he said President
Samia's move to lead with the philosophy of 4R (reconciliation, change,
resilience and rebuilding) is one of the successes that has enabled discussions
in politics and even economics.
Professor Kessy said the head of state
has shown the urgency to take action against any executive who is complained
about by the people.
In a different way, the move to change
the law is viewed by Conrad Masabo, from the Department of Political Science of
the University of Dar es Salaam as reflecting the political will of the current
President and this is one of the successes in his performance three years.
LAW AMENDMENT
Within that period, three electoral laws have been amended, the
aim being to create a good political environment in the country and respond to
the thirst of citizens who want to see change.
Laws enacted by Parliament include the Law on the Election of the
President, Members of Parliament and Councillors, the Law on the Election
Commission and the Law on Political Parties.
However, some stakeholders including the Democratic and
Development Party (Chedema) criticized them saying that the amendment has not
touched the root of the problem.
Chadema started protests across the country to oppose the laws,
claiming that the solution to having free and fair elections is to have a new
Constitution for the people that will provide an environment for equality in
elections.
The party has already held protests in the big cities of Dar es
Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya and Arusha and has recently announced to start the second
phase of protests in various regions.
CHANGE DIRECTION UVIKO-19
When President Samia came to power, the world was dealing with the
outbreak of the disease Uviko-19 and various countries in the world took
several measures to protect themselves from the disease, including announcing
quarantine and providing vaccination against the virus.
His predecessor, Hayati Magufuli refused the Uviko-19 vaccine, so
they were not allowed to enter the country, great enthusiasm was placed on the
use of herbal medicines and smoking as a way to treat the disease.
However, shortly after coming to power, President Samia announced
to allow vaccination to be imported into the country and encouraged citizens to
get vaccinated while he himself was the first person to receive the vaccine.
For that step, the President-elect of the Association of Tanzanian
Doctors (MAT), Dr. Mugisha Nkoronko, said that when the leadership of the sixth
phase came into power, it took professional perspectives, integrated ideas and
broad cooperation with international organizations to allow vaccines and cross
strategies towards controlling the disease.
"He continued the efforts of research and vaccine production
in this country founded by his predecessor. He faced the effects of Uviko-19
with effective measures accepted by many inside and outside Tanzania,"
says Dr. Nkoronko.
ECONOMIC REFORM
Samia's reform has not ended only in politics and health, but in
the country's economy in general, highlighting steps to open the country to
trade and investment.
He said that in his administration, the direction will be to
restore confidence to investors and provide incentives to smart investors,
including enabling investments to be made quickly
President Samia said there will be specific qualifications and
requirements that will be clearly set in identifying strategic projects that
will be eligible for tax incentives or other incentives. The issue of access to
capital also has to be looked at with great attention.
He also said that his Government intends to carry out operational
reforms in the tax collection and collection system, to set up a system that
will simplify and attract taxpayers, and create a wider spectrum of taxpayers
compared to the existing taxpayers.
"Therefore, there is every need to expand the scope of tax
payers, as well as, to put in place friendly tax payment and collection
systems. I would like to see businessmen, investors and citizens pay taxes
without coercion and the use of force, realizing that taxes are their
development," said President Samia and the statement was enjoyed by the
business community.
If 16 months have passed since November 2022, the Chairman of the
Board of Directors of the Tanzania Revenue Authority, Uledi Mussa said that the
Task Forces that were used to collect taxes by force have been removed to
ensure that there is justice in revenue collection in the country.
"At the moment we are collecting revenue without taxes. They
should completely abandon the use of taxes. We want the taxpayers to feel very
comfortable," he said while speaking to the Tanzania Editors' Forum (TEF).
In addition, while addressing the Parliament, President Samia said
that his leadership has the determination to conduct a detailed review and
analysis on the operation of Public Organizations, with the aim of making them
able to operate profitably.
In order to fulfill that purpose, on December 15, 2023, the
Minister of State, Office of the President, Planning and Investment, Professor
Kitila Mkumbo announced the merger of 16 organizations and institutions and the
cancellation of four public organizations and institutions, in order to
increase productivity in work.
ATTRACTIVE INVESTMENT
In the period from March 2021 to March 10, 2024, the Tanzania
Investment Center (TIC) has registered 1,188 projects equal to an increase of
63.19 percent compared to 728 projects registered in the same period, March
2018 to March 10, 2021.
In terms of Jobs generated due to the registration of projects,
there has been an increase of 231.63 percent from 104,172 jobs generated during
the three-year period from 2018 to 2021 to 345,464 jobs expected in the
three-year period of the sixth phase from March 2021 to March 2024.
The capital value of investment projects registered in TIC from
March 2021 to March 2024 compared to the same period from March 2018 to March
2021, has increased by 137.5 percent from US$ 6.33 billion to US$ 15.04
billion.
Explaining why this has happened, the Director of the Tanzania
Commercial Bank (TCB), Adam Mihayo said that during the three years of
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, a lot has been done and in general it has
restored confidence to investors and promoted business.
Mihayo made the statement while speaking about President Samia's
leadership journey that started on March 19, 2021, saying that the environment
for doing business has improved, investors' confidence has increased, which can
be seen through investment statistics in the country
He says that President Samia has done a great job, including
maintaining peace, without which people cannot carry out development
activities.
"There are deliberate steps taken by the Government to ensure
that developmental activities are strengthened, its budget has been increasing
in three years, the sectors that run the economy have been making more money
year after year," said Mihayo.
LET THE CONSCIOUSNESS SPREAD
Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (KKKT),
Diocese of Karagwe, Dr. Benson Bagonza says President Samia made an effort in his
first speech, starting with statements to unite the nation, however there are
two things that are still not right.
He mentioned these things saying, mosi, national reconciliation is
more than parties agreeing, there are many groups in the previous administration
that were divided and they need to agree.
"There was hostility between tax payers and tax collectors,
there was hostility between farmers and breeders, there is hostility between
unemployed youth and their Government.
Therefore, bringing reconciliation between political parties is a
small part of uniting the nation and there is still work to be done and the
President needs help," said Bishop Bagonza
Secondly, the leader said, even in the political reconciliation
has been stuck, "with the good intention of the mother, to bring political
reconciliation, she is still stuck and in my opinion she has been stopped by
two main things.
"He is a party and he is the Government, so how can he fail
to divide himself, when should he be a party and when should he be Serilakali,
it is a big job and he needs help, I advise him not to give up and return to
the table," he said
The bishop said, reconciliation does not happen overnight. Another
reason is because what caused the political alignment is more legal and constitutional
than person to person.
"You cannot solve legal problems politically and you cannot
solve political problems by using the law. What I see is that they are stuck in
the legal area and the Constitution. The president should be helped in that
area," he says.
LET HIM TAKE ACTION
The Chairman of the Public Liberation Party (Chaumma), Hashim
Rungwe said the administration is focusing on controlling corruption and
managing public assets but every day people are stealing and he does not see
the steps being taken.
"President Samia's job is to inform us every day that people
are stealing our money, but he does not take any action against them and their
procedure has been careless since the previous phases, we know they are taking
money," he says.
He says that the people who squander the money have been building
luxury houses while the majority of the citizens are making a lot of noise to
the point of continuing to build hatred.
"If he was taking action, we would have seen it, but no one
has ever taken action, he has been saying that those who do that should
evaluate themselves if they can keep up with his speed," he says.
Rungwe adds that even the commissions that are formed do not want
to involve stakeholders from other parties, so it has become discrimination
that is intolerable for failing to recognize that they are Tanzanians and have
pain with the country's resources.
GREAT USAGE
The General Secretary of the Democratic and Mendeleo Party
(Chadema), John Mnyika said that President Samia during his tenure in power has
failed to take policy, tax and operational measures to reduce government
spending in order to reduce the burden of the difficult life that citizens are
going through.
"As a result, the prices of products have been increasing
every year since he came into power, the thing that is making life difficult
for the people is an area that he should look at when he goes forward," he
says.
Mnyika says the second area is the rate of growth of the national
debt within his time has been high, he should control it by not continuing to
borrow loans abroad for commercial purposes.
And the Deputy General Secretary of the People's Party (CUF)-Bara,
Magdalena Sakaya said that President Samia has worked hard to build democracy
by bringing political equality in the country by believing that no party has
the title of the country.
"He has released political parties from a seven-year sentence
and brought back public meetings which are platforms for people to speak and
they have been free to express their opinions without distraction," he
said.
Sakaya mentions the area where he failed to do justice to control
the accountability of public office executives, citizens have been going
through a difficult time to get services.
"If you go to hospitals, health centers, land offices, the
situation is bad. For example, I have been following my document for four years
now, I haven't found it yet, they are going to make you go over the
details," he says.
He says all the executives have turned to praise everything and have been enjoying free salaries without working and increasing the anger of the people.