Contribution for weddings and stuff

Some interesting New Year resolutions, from Dr. Olomi

I wholeheartedly support Dr Donati Olomi in this analysis. Please share this widely. Sorry if you can't understand the language. Info applies for Tanzania.

Nimekuwa nafuatilia jinsi desturi ya kuchangia na kufanya sherehe kubwa inavyozidi kushika kasi, ikipelekea ule wigo wa kuomba michango kupanuka kiasi kwamba sasa hata mtu ambaye jina lako halijui vizuri anaweza kukuomba mchango.
Aidha michango na sherehe hizi zimekuwa mzigo mkubwa sana kwa baadhi ya watu, ikiwa ni pamoja na wale wenye kipato kidogo wanaochangiwa na kulazimika kulipa michango hiyo kwa miaka mingi. Je, wajua kuwa kuna familia ambazo zimefikia kulazimisha ndugu wauze mashamba au mifugo mtaji ili kupata fedha za kuchangia sherehe?. Je, wajua kuwa kuna watu ambao zaidi ya nusu ya kipato chao wanatumia kuchangia sherehe na huku wakishindwa kulipia huduma muhimu kama shule, matibabu, lishe, nk. Na kuwa wakati mwingine wewe au mimi (au wengine kama mimi na wewe) ndio wenyeviti na makatibu wa sherehe hiyo?. Na ni sisi tunaoona fahari ya kutumia milioni 30 au zaidi kwenye sherehe usiku mmoja?
Kuna kijana mmoja jamaa yetu juzi juzi alipata shule Australia akawa anatafuta mchango wa dola 5,000 aende. Alipata 2,000 na amwekwama kwenda. Mwaka kesho akisema anaoa tutamchangia milioni 15-20!!!. Hii si hadithi, ni ukweli, na ni kielelezo cha ulimbukeni tuliofikia.
Siku za karibuni nimetambua kuwa kuna kundi kubwa tu linasikitishwa na huu mwenendo, na hata kutambua kuwa tunaweza kuwa tunaandikiwa dhambi kubwa (na hukumu yatusubiri) kwa jinsi wengi wetu tunashindwa kusaidia mambo ya msingi lakini tunakuwa wepesi kutoa kwenye sherehe. Wengi wanaamini kuwa tumeshatumbukia kwenye lindi la mazoea ambapo hatuwezi kujitoa mpaka upepo uje ubadilike wenyewe!.
Mimi nafikiri wasomi tuna jukumu muhimu la kuwa chachu ya mabadiliko pale ambapo mazoea yenye madhara yanavuka mipaka na kuweza hata kuwa chanzo cha ufukara na kuviza maendeleo.
Ili kubadilisha hili jambo, lazima tuanzie mahali. Mimi napendeleza na kuanza kutekeleza. Kuanzia Januari 2011, nitapunguza michango ninayotoa. Nitatoa tu kwa mtu wa karibu sana , na nitachanga kidogo. Usishangae nikakuchangia 20,000/= kama ulitegemea 50,000/= kwa mfano. Kuanzia July 2011, nitaacha kabisa kuchangia sherehe. Badala yake nitakuwa nachangia elimu pale ambapo mzazi hayupo au mhusika kweli hana uwezo na pia nitachangia miradi mingine ya jamii na maendeleo.
Je waniunga mkono? Kama ndiyo sambaza huu ujumbe kwa mtandao wako.

Dr. D.R.Olomi
Box 35036 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This is what Africa needs

Why donors fear Kagame's war on graft


The Botswana Gazette

13.04.2005

http://www.gazette.bw/tbg_buhead2.htm

by Andrew M. Mwenda

  

Last week I was in Kigali, this time at the heels of a cabinet decision to impound all luxurious four wheel drive vehicles bought at government expense and driven by ministers, security and military chiefs, foreign experts and their local handlers. In a morning crackdown, all the big men and women of this republic woke up to find that police constables along the main roads were stopping and taking away their vehicles and leaving them to walk to office.

The international donor community, known all over Africa for its corrupt and profligate life styles which they indulge in the name of fighting poverty, was this time caught with their pants down. They claim to fight poverty while riding in luxurious four-wheel drive vehicles, sitting in opulently furnished offices, earning obscene salaries and living in executive mansions. In a bold act of defiance, Rwanda impounded even those vehicles belonging to donor projects. After cleaning his own government of corruption, he has now taken on the profligacy of the international aid industry and its experts are now scared.

In a discussion with President Paul Kagame, he told me that he had looked at some of the "poverty reduction" projects and they smelt bad. "There are projects here worth only $5m and when I looked at their expenses, I found that $1m was going into buying these cars, each one of them at $70,000.

Another $1m goes to buy office furniture, more $1m for meetings and entertainment, and yet another $1m as salaries for technical experts, leaving only $1m for the actual expenditure on a poverty reducing activity. Is this the way to fight poverty?" he asked as I shifted with glee in my chair.

Already, the government is auctioning these vehicles and so far has gotten over $3m from the sales. Mr Kagame has now issued a new directive, saying government should not purchase cars for its officials with more than 2,500 cc. But there is more: the government has placed a ceiling on mobile telephone expenses for all its ministers, military and security chiefs to 50,000 Rwanda Francs (Shs150, 000), and also ordered MTN Rwanda to cut off their international roaming access.

The directive also stops the holding of workshops, seminars and conferences on poverty reduction in posh hotels like the Intercontinental, Mille Collins etc, insisting they should be in government owned buildings at no cost. The order also requires all government ministries; departments and agencies to move from privately owned buildings where they pay high rents to government owned buildings.

I told Kagame that whereas some of the most highly skilled Africans are going to Europe and North=2 0America to clean streets and toilets, our development partners send us Œtechnical experts on these projects at individual monthly salaries of between $10,000 and $20,000, a salary that could pay 12 Africans of better training and experience and save this continent from severe brain drain. In fact, most of these so-called experts are a miserable, career-stranded lot in their own countries, but are dumped in Africa and other poor countries through foreign aid protocols.

Donors never shy from lecturing our governments on fiscal frugality, yet their aid driven projects are the most profligate. Of total project aid to Uganda's ministry of Health, 93 percent of it goes into technical assistance (i.e. salaries and allowances for the experts) and overheads (i.e. four wheel drive vehicles, opulent office furniture, computers, stationary, tea and cakes).

Only a miserable 7 percent of this aid goes into purchase of drugs. Now you understand why, in spite of a huge health budget, our people cannot find drugs in hospitals. We in the media have been shouting ourselves hoarse against government corruption. It is time to expose the worse forms of profligacy, which forces our governments to pile up huge sums in debt.

In fact, of the total money from the Uganda government budget to the ministry of Health, 98 percent reaches its intended beneficiaries, clearly showing that in spite of its corrupt ways, the government of Uganda is a better evi l than donors. Of total project aid to Uganda, 68 percent goes into overheads and technical assistance. Only 32 percent to its intended beneficiaries.

A few weeks ago I presented the above facts to President Yoweri Museveni and asked him to act. My heart bleeds to say he is so deeply discredited by his inability to tackle corruption in his government, and his own profligate public administration expenditure that he lacks moral authority to take on donors.

The other reason is that his regime lives off this coalition of mutual deceit with donors that both are fighting to eradicate poverty in Uganda. Kagame, however, is able to act boldly because he occupies a moral high ground in fighting corruption, has ensured fiscal frugality and also because his government pursues strategies of survival - not necessarily dependant on donor approval.

In Rwanda, ministers and other high ranking public officials resign and or are fired by the week because of allegations of corruption. From the lowest clerk in a government office to the most powerful minister or military or security chief, no one is immune to jail when they steal; none close to the president, none distant from him. You steal, you get jailed.

If there is some prima facie case that you stole, but there isn't not enough evidence to convict you in a court of law, then you are asked to resign or get fired. What a tough guy this Kagame man is!!