Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete spoke to The EastAfrican’s Daniel K Kalinaki on his legacy as he nears retirement; relations between the mainland and Zanzibar; the way forward concerning the structure of the government; corruption and regional ties.

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What is the most significant thing about the upcoming celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Union?

The most significant thing is that the Union has survived. It’s not been easy. There are examples of countries trying to come together but failing like Sene-Gambia, I think Ghana-Guinea failed, Egypt, Libya tried, but we have survived 50 years and that’s one of the landmark achievements.

There have been difficult moments, challenges, but we have managed to overcome them and not only has the Union survived but it has gone from strength to strength.

The current exercise we are undertaking of the constitutional review will strengthen it further and consolidate the gains so that we have a stronger Union.

The constitution-making exercise has been distilled to either having a three-tier or two-tier government. You support the status quo yet it seems like many people support a three-tier structure. Are you swimming against the tide?

Where is the evidence of many people?

A lot of the rhetoric in the media seems to suggest that there is a large push towards realigning the way the Union works.

You are talking of the media and not the people. There is no evidence that the people of this country want a three-tier government. Even the commission itself did not discover that.

Is this a deal-breaker for you in the negotiations over a new constitution?

We are discussing the structure of government and which one is better for us and I am one of those who believes that the two-tier government is the best for this country so it is not just a question of trying to maintain the status quo.

You change if there is a basis for change; you change if it adds value. I don’t see a three-tier government adding value; it will create problems and ultimately could lead to the break up of the Union itself.

READ: Kikwete vs Warioba: Tanzania at a crossroads

At your swearing-in in 2005, you said that your top priority would be to improve relations between the mainland and Zanzibar. How well do you think you have done this?

We’ve done a lot. One of the things I said then was the need to deal with the fault lines in Zanzibar,­ the political fault lines,­ which we have done. Now we have a government of national unity.

Prior to that, we had a lot of problems because every time we had elections there were squabbles and then instability, so we brought the two parties together, we had serious discussions and the agreement and the understanding is that they should come together in one government. Whoever wins brings the others on board and Zanzibar has stability now.

That sounds like progress, yet there is also evidence of a growing secessionist tendency or sentiment in Zanzibar. We are also seeing religious extremism that sometimes turns into violence. Is that something you are concerned about?

The religious extremism has nothing to do with the Union. Mombasa in Kenya has been bombed.

Religious extremism is a phenomenon that all of us have to grapple with, and it is very much related with the Al Qaeda movement and the number of cells that they have established all over the world. It is something that we have been working on jointly by sharing information between Kenya and Tanzania, sharing a lot of intelligence.

READ: Religious riots in Zanzibar, six churches burnt

I remember we had to deal with some groups that wanted to disrupt the Kenyan elections; they were trying to hide here but we arrested them. These are issues that we always deal with quietly.

The separatist movement is not something new. In 2009 we had a phenomenon of people from Pemba who wanted to secede from Zanzibar itself and had written a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, so these kinds of people will always be there from time to time but I don’t take them to be big issues that we have to blow out of proportion; we will always be able to manage them and I don’t think they will be able to wreck the country. You will always have some crazy guys with these crazy ideas.

Tanzania is behind its neighbours in the region on pro-business reforms. In the World Bank Doing Business Reports, between 2013 and 2014, Tanzania falls back nine places; have you taken your eye off the ball?

This is something that concerns me because in 2007 Tanzania was among the top 10 reforming countries in the world and the slippage now is something that concerns me. The business environment is key to growth.

When the climate is good and permissive people are encouraged to come and invest so it’s something that concerns me. We are beginning to take action so let’s see what comes out of the action. Definitely we cannot go on slipping backwards.

Transparency International, in its latest rankings, has Tanzania as the 66th most corrupt country in the world. Is this something that you go to sleep thinking about?

Of course it concerns me a lot. We are investing a lot in fighting vices in society and corruption is top on the agenda. Political will has never been wanting in the fight against the vice but we are not succeeding well, particularly in the courts of law, particularly when it comes to the big-time corruption cases.

Of course, we have done well in terms of arresting a number of people, taking a number of people to court,­ some of them fellow Cabinet colleagues, but we really want to see (ourselves) succeeding. We are not doing very well on that and it is something that really concerns me. We have to succeed in this fight; failure is not an option.

You’ve had, under your watch, fairly big-scale corruption scandals. Richmond and the External Payments Arrears account are two that come to mind. Do you take any personal responsibility for that happening on your watch?

The External Payments saga did not happen during my time, only that the issues came into the open during my time. The Richmond took place during my time. The prime minister took political responsibility for that so we cannot say we have not done anything about that; we have done something.

Are you happy with what you have done? Is that something that restores confidence among people who are coming to invest in Tanzania and also among ordinary Tanzanians, that their government has the political will you spoke about to fight corruption?

We have not seen evidence of a decline in interest in investing in Tanzania. In 2005 FDI was $150 million and now we have $1.7 billion in 2013. Of course, Tanzanians need to see more action taken, but we have taken action. The prime minister assumed political responsibility for the mistakes that were made. And that’s it.

Many people were impressed by your open approach to the media when you took office but in the past couple of years there have been attacks on the media,­ closure of newspapers and physical attacks on journalists. Do you feel that the space for media freedom in Tanzania needs to be expanded?

Tanzania has plenty of space. If somebody tries to blame Tanzania over media space, I think they are being academic.

But it does not mean that we can accept anything. If press freedom is the freedom to destroy a country, that’s something we cannot accept. If somebody incites the military to rebel against the government, that’s not something we can accept and we cannot consider that as freedom of the press; you are just creating problems and we close those newspapers.

If it is freedom to say this government has failed, the people are still poor, they don’t have water, we like that kind of information because it keeps us on our toes in order to be able to take action.

Last year you advised the governments of DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda ­to enter into political dialogue with the rebel groups they were fighting against, having failed in some cases to defeat them militarily. There was a very angry response from President Paul Kagame of Rwanda who described the proposal as “utter nonsense.” Were you surprised by the nature of the response?

Of course I was. I thought I was just honest, but everybody has got his own country and knows how best to run it and if they think my advice is something that they don’t accept, that is up to them.

READ: Analysis: Powers behind Rwanda-Tanzania ailing relations

How are relations between you and President Kagame?

Well, I don’t have any problem with him. As far as I am concerned, there is no problem.

Do you still think that dialogue between the governments and the rebels is a tenable option?

I don’t want to continue to discuss these issues. They are worthless. They add no value, it is up to the Rwandans to decide. It is not about Tanzania.

Do you feel that the Coalition of the Willing, as it came to be known, was deliberate isolation of Tanzania?

My concern and our concern has been on issues that we have agreed on to do jointly within the East African Community and if they decide to leave Tanzania out.

This is something on which we have to raise an issue but also, there were two issues at that time where we had actually agreed; how to operationalise the Single Customs Territory and to work on the road map for the East African Federation.

We had assigned the Council of Ministers to work on these two issues and report back at the next summit, which was going to take place in Kampala. So when these two issues were included in the discussions of three of our members, and decisions taken on them, this was not right.

Of course this reference to the Coalition of the Willing was one of the statements that was coming out of the press. In fact, at the meeting in Kampala when we were discussing this matter, I raised these issues then all the presidents said they had not said it; all my three colleagues said this is something that the media has created; ­it never came from any of them.

Because if you say it is a Coalition of the Willing, it would be justified to say that Tanzania and Burundi are not willing if and only if we were invited and refused to participate.

READ: Test of unity for EAC as Tanzania is isolated

Have you resolved these issues?

We discussed it in Kampala and resolved it. At the Kampala Summit, the issue of the SCT was brought up as a substantive agenda and we decided on it; the issue of the road map was brought up and we discussed it as a substantive agenda item and we are going to meet towards the end of this month in Arusha to get a report on the roadmap towards the EA Federation.

You’ve said you look forward to your retirement in 18 months or so. One of the problems that holds back Africa is leaders who do not want to peacefully relinquish power; do you share that concern?

I am going to retire next year and I am excited about it. I am planning for my retirement now. I will go back to the village and look after my cattle. I am a pineapple grower; I will look at how to expand my farm.

Every country has got its own constitution, its own modalities. If there is a country that has a constitution that is open-ended, it is up to them. If the people of that country decide, it is up to them; it is not up to me to judge.

What lessons can you share from Tanzania? You’ve had a long-running leader, and then a succession of leaders who come and go.

Before President Nyerere retired, we had a constitutional amendment and agreed that from now on leaders are going to stay in office for two terms of five years if they are elected. We agreed and thank God we have observed it.

We have had no experience of temptation by any of my predecessors to change that and I don’t have it either, so that’s Tanzania. I don’t speak about other countries.

What is your legacy going to be?

Tanzanians will decide but I consider my term in office as a time of scaling up. We have scaled up on roads, on construction, on education, on health, and many other things.

It is for Tanzanians to judge but my biggest satisfaction is that we have done a tremendous job in the road infrastructure, in the expansion of primary and secondary education.

We had only 40,000 students in university; now we have 180,000, which is phenomenal; we had 525,000 in secondary school; now we have 1.9 million.

The important thing I want Tanzanians to appreciate is that I have made my contribution. I found them somewhere and I leave them somewhere better than they were before when I took office.