By Aikande Kwayu
 |
| Hon. Freeman Mbowe and Hon.Zitto Kabwe |
Disclaimer:
This entry is objective. It is written after much reflections and
thoughts. It is an expression of my reflections. I declare the
following:
- Mr. Zitto Kabwe is my good friend and we are writing a book together.
- Mr. Freeman Mbowe is my home MP. We come from the same village and are neighbors. We are, in many angles, a family. I also worked very closely with him during the 2010 elections and admired his strengths. Learnt so much from this experience.
- My father, Mr. Clement Kwayu, is a local councilor with Chadema ticket.
- I am a loyal member of Chadema. I supported the party since when I could remember. My party card membership is from 2005.
- I ran for a women special seat MP in 2010.
- I am now a development and management consultant at BUMACO and a research affiliate of the University of Oxford, Department of Education. I do not plan to ran for any office in the near future as my focus is on academic research and writing.
In the early hours of Friday 22nd Nov, news broke that
Chadema, the main opposition party, has stripped off Zitto Kabwe and Dr.
Kitila Mkumbo leadership positions in the party. (For a coherent
analysis and events as they unfolded see Mtega’s analysis at http://mtega.com/2013/11/25/ccm-hoyee-zitto-and-chadema-in-a-mess-as-usual-its-all-about-2015/)
The former was the Deputy Secretary General of the party and the Deputy
Opposition leader in the Parliament, while the latter was the member of
the party’s central committee. Both of them are young, energetic and
highly educated people. Their works are known and respected both locally
and internationally. For example, both of them have international
publications- meaning that they command respect and contribute to the
reviewed knowledge. Dr. Mkumbo is a senior lecturer at the University of
Dar-es-Salaam and he has published in peer reviewed academic journals.
He is an authority in a number of aspects on education psychology. Mr.
Kabwe is becoming one of the leading experts in the war against
corruption. This is owed to his continuous dangerous and risk fight
against corruption in Tanzania. His name appears in the recent
best-sellers book on corruption- Global Corruption by Cockcroft.. In the
same vein he has been engaged himself in a herculean task of fighting
tax injustice and illicit money flow. Of late, Mr. Kabwe was among
experts who participated in a Europe fact-finding mission commissioned
by a coalition of European NGOs to investigate on illicit money flows.
He also invited to present a paper on illicit money flows in the Open
Government Partnership (OGP) summit in London 2013.
In the local public sphere, Zitto Kabwe is a development- minded
leader. This has led him to look at things from a bipartisan
perspective. It is costing him. He is paying a high price for this. I
will talk about his work at domestic level from my various encounters
with him. The idea of writing a book with Mr. Kabwe was born out of our
discussion of why poverty persists in Tanzania amid a decade long 7%
average economic growth. The book has progressed but due to his busy
schedule it has been difficult to meet the deadlines. For those who have
met him before may testify to the fact that Kabwe discussions and talks
revolve around development issues in Tanzania. He speaks about rural
poverty and constantly thinking of ways to bring about rural development
in Tanzania. Eradicating the rampant rural poverty in Tanzania is his
ultimate wish.
In that respect, Kabwe came up with the idea of extending social
security to farmers. Conventionally in Tanzania, social security has
only been something for formally employed people, who make an
insignificant percentage of Tanzanian population. Most of the productive
age in Tanzania are engaged in informal economic activities most of its
being self-employed peasantry farming. Kabwe piloted his idea in Kigoma
through a cooperative known as Rumako. Him and NSSF raised awareness
and enrolled 750 farmers into the scheme. When that worked well and
successful, Kabwe thought of the plan to extend this to other regions in
the country. He linked my employer company- BUMACO with NSSF – so as we
can do the same for farmers in Kilimanjaro. The rationale for working
with BUMACO is due to its 30-years track record of working with
cooperatives in rural settings. BUMACO has a network of 20 SACCOS in
rural Kilimanjaro. Kabwe ‘s wish is to extend social security to
farmers in other regions all over Tanzania. He keeps saying this is
transformational.
Being a member of Chadema I am ever proud of having a party leader
such as him. He is always working very hard. This year alone, Kabwe has
put so much in his parliamentary committee ( #PAC), and party membership
recruitment and public rallies (refer to his 9 days party tour and
rallies he did in North-Western Tanzania in September). He has his
weaknesses as any other human being, but the best thing is to capitalize
on his strengths so as to counter his weaknesses. Why does the party
keep looking for his mistakes? Why? Is this what politics is all about?
Is this the kind of political change we want?
Kabwe has stood up on principles such as refusing to accept sitting
allowances as well as standing firm on the parties to be audited. The
party, if anything, should have supported these two principles. In fact I
think the party should have adopted them in the list of its main
agenda. If the party leadership keeps calling for the changes, yet
keeping fighting internally with those who are trying to bring real and
painful changes, what does it expect the public to think of them?
To cut the long story short, I think the party central committee
decision was wrong to strip Kabwe’s off leadership position based on
the following reasons among many others:
- The timing of the decision is insensitive, and if anything a testimony to the unfounded claims to strip Kabwe off his leadership position. Of late, since Kabwe announced that PAC has ordered political parties’ accounts to be audited, we have been reading defensive reactions and attacks directed to him from the two main political parties in Tanzania. Even if Kabwe did not inform his bosses or rather collogues prior to his announcement (which I think there was no need to since he was acting as a PAC chairman and not party puppet), why was the party so defensive???? What’s the implication of such a reaction with regards to the ‘Mkakati wa Siri’ interpretation? All these are many questions that one has to ask. The events that unfolded before the central committee decision do not add up to the central committee’s ‘excuse’ given for stripping off Kabwe’s leadership position
- The editor of the ‘Mkakati wa Siri’- Dr Mkumbo declared that Kabwe was not aware of the document. Even the language used in the document refers to him in the ‘third person’ – i.e. he was not part of him. A credible committee should not use feeble evidence to make such huge judgments.
- The party’s internal elections have always been dramatic and not to the best of democratic ideals. Personally, I vied for a special seat MP in 2010. To date, I do not understand the process and criteria to which 25 women were nominated to be part of the key branch (the parliament) of our esteemed republic. These women legislate for the country and use millions of tax- man money as salaries and allowances. Thus, I can never trust (100%) the ‘fairness’ of decisions made by the central committee.
Political analysts with interests on Tanzania’s party politics can go
on analyzing this drama. Mine is not a political analysis per se, but
my honest reflection of the ongoing drama in relations to my experience.
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