Questions now for Magufuli style

Tanzania's President John Pombe Magufuli holds up a ceremonial spear and shield to signify the beginning of his presidency, shortly after swearing an oath during his inauguration ceremony at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on November 5, last year.

Tanzania's President John Pombe Magufuli holds up a ceremonial spear and shield to signify the beginning of his presidency, shortly after swearing an oath during his inauguration ceremony at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on November 5, last year.

Published May 30, 2016

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Will the John Magufuli phenomenon eventually prove to be too good to have been true?

Magufuli, who was elected Tanzanian president last October, has shaken up his country – and inspired the region and the continent – by forcefully rooting out corruption, incompetence and wasteful ­expenditure in government.

He has fired scores of officials – including his Home Affairs Minister for being drunk in Parliament – and removed 10 000 ghost workers from the public service payroll.

He has also cancelled almost all foreign travel by officials as well as big public ceremonies, and instituted many other money-saving measures.

And so on. Magufuli is ­directing the money saved towards development and has just presented a budget in which social spending rises from 27% of the total to 40%.

His information minister, Nape Nnauye, recently said, rather tactlessly, that some citizens of notoriously-corrupt neighbour Kenya had asked if they could borrow Magufuli “even for just one month”.

Now, after six months of Magufuli in office, ordinary Tanzanian citizens still seem enamoured by their leader, but some others are starting to question his style of governance.

This month, Michelle DeFreese, of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Tanzania, wrote an article for The World Post, asking “Is Magufuli the region’s next Kagame?”

She noted many similarities between Magufuli and Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s equally kick-arse mode of governing, including the compulsory clean-up duty all Rwandans have to do once a month.

DeFreese’s article, though, seemed to imply that it would be a good thing if Magufuli were indeed to prove to become the region’s next Kagame.

If so, many would disagree with her.

Yes, Kagame has worked wonders in cleaning up Rwanda and improving government efficiency. But his ruthless imperiousness is deeply worrying.

And Magufuli displays some of those characteristics. Information minister Nnauye permanently banned the weekly newspaper Mawio for its critical reporting on the government’s cancellation of the results of the elections in semi-autonomous Zanzibar when the opposition won.

Magufuli’s government also suspended the operating licences of six TV and 21 radio stations for not paying their licence fees on time.

It granted the licences soon after to the few who promptly paid the fees. The latter measure could be justified as efficiency, but shutting down Mawio was just plain silencing of critics.

In an article last week, “Government by gesture: A president who looks good, but governs impulsively”, the British Economist has taken a critical look at Magufuli.

The article said the president’s often impulsive, poorly thought out actions were starting to prove counter-productive to his worthy goals of saving wasteful expenditure to spend more on development.

For example, it noted that he had offered free secondary school education. But then his government had started expelling foreign workers without proper permits, including thousands of Kenyan teachers.

“Schools that were already straining to cope with a huge influx of new pupils are now at breaking point,” the Economist said, adding that “he has a worrying tendency not to think things through.”

For example, to raise more money, Magufuli had enforced VAT on the costs of moving goods, that arrive at the port, overland to neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Malawi.

“Shipping firms have immediately switched routes and now unload in Kenya, Mozambique or South Africa, leaving a once bustling harbour almost empty.”

The article also noted some positive economic moves by Magufuli, such as persuading Uganda to route its $4-billion oil pipeline through Tanz­ania rather than Kenya, and Rwanda to build a railway to Dar-es-Salaam instead of the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

But it also underscored Magufuli’s impulsiveness, which has been worrying some Tanzanians since his previous job as Public Works minister, when he acquired the nickname “The Bulldozer” for bashing aside anyone who got in his way.

These critics fault him for firing public officials on the spot if he believes they have done wrong – without any recourse to the courts or any other due process.

The journal also criticised him for being myopic economically for ignoring wider reforms aimed at spurring growth, such as by making Tanzania an easier country to do business in.

Instead he does things like giving foreign companies seven days to settle their bills – and then seizing the money directly from their bank ­accounts if they don’t.

The Economist tellingly quotes opposition leader Zitto Kabwe as saying “What Africa needs is strong institutions, not strong men or women.”

Probably it needs both, though the former is certainly more important. Given the glaring deficit of good, clean and efficient government in most countries, including Tanzania, most of Magufuli’s forceful and direct interventions so far – such as pitching up without warning at public hospitals to assess conditions – have been necessary and ­useful.

But he should not be trespassing beyond his proper jurisdiction by doing the work which institutions like the courts, government arbitration bodies and the media are supposed to do.

Two of his neighbours, Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, were widely hailed as aggressive reformists when they came into office. They both later proved to be dictators who have overstayed their welcomes and now ­cannot be removed.

One hopes Magufuli doesn’t go the same way.

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