When serious reforms mean no sugar, my nationalist tea begins to taste bitter
Wednesday July 26 2017
When we exploit our mineral wealth strange things happen, not least in the collusions between companies that are smart enough to keep their profits by bribing and manipulating altogether willing local partners inside and outside of government. FILE PHOTO | AFP
So it has been a bit difficult mustering up the interest to follow what has been going on with the Tanzania mining saga in much detail, and while it was going on there was so much conflicting information and opinion swirling around that frankly it seemed best to stay away.
As far as I can tell, things seem to have resolved themselves in the form of a new Mining Act that intends to deliver a more favourable cut of the extractive industry pie to the Republic of Tanzania.
As a resource nationalist, I am technically in support of the underlying intent of this effort. It isn’t even a particularly jingoistic thing; the extractive industries are very lucrative but few African countries have managed to escape the disastrous consequences of being resource-rich.
When we exploit our mineral wealth strange things happen, not least in the collusions between companies that are smart enough to keep their profits by bribing and manipulating altogether willing local partners inside and outside of government.
We are a poor nation, so we really, really need the money from selling our natural resources to make the government, among other things, work.
You know, to pay for the salaries of the guerrilla teachers who will continue to provide schoolgirls, pregnant or otherwise, with an education that can equip them for the demands of this modern life. Which means there is plenty of incentive to legislate things so that we can extract the maximum from the extractors – tax them to the upper limits indeed! I get that, and do not doubt the good intentions behind the thought.
It isn’t just the mining companies, mind you. A civic part of me is enthused when I hear about initiatives to “clean up corruption” at the ports and at the petrol stations and wherever else it can be found and wrestled into submission... right up until it backfires all over my consumer life messily.
Like, the price of sugar, which will probably never be the same again, and which forced me once to buy non-Tanzanian sugar (the shame of it still stings). Or the shock of finding almost no fuel stations open from one day to the next on account of their having been caught on the wrong side of the Tanzania Revenue Authority’s regulations.
It’s not like we don’t understand that reforms are never fun or comfortable. We’ve been plagued by reformers of one extreme or the other since the get go – fiscal disciplinarians and free-marketers – and we generally weather their storms well enough. According to the comfortably predictable Tanzanian presidential cycle, we were due for a disciplinarian after a bout of serious laissez-faire anyways. And glad we were to get one.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself sympathising somewhat with the nefarious mineral sector, and well, the private sector. Yes, yes, they have done terrible things because of greedy capitalism, and some folks really need to end up being charged with economic treason. The problem is how we are going about things.
As with the public firings of civil servants and the straight-up harassment of the opposition, the brutality of our current approach to reform is supremely gauche. Worse yet, it may be proving detrimental to our economy.
One of the more enjoyable hypocrisies of being an armchair socialist and believer in a post-scarcity world is conveniently ignoring that I am also a consumer of goods and participator in this economic system that I like to denigrate so much.
Griping about capitalism when you have an adequate supply of sugar in your larder, and can afford petrol, is easy. When “reforms” result in prices for basic goods that never come down, or bizarre edicts that keep frightening my retailers and service providers with no other tangible benefits? Well.
Is the cure we have currently adopted for our corruption and taxation problems turning out to be worse than the disease? Are we using a chainsaw instead of a delicate surgeon’s knife to perform excisions?
Will the economy have to go through a crisis before we rethink the methods we are applying to “fixing” public revenue ills?
As we continue down this path of Hapa Kazi Tu, let us also reflect on the roles of wisdom, cunning and delicacy in complex endeavours such as these. For the successes to last, we may have to consider more constructive approaches. Seriously: Nobody likes a battered economy, not even armchair socialists.
Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]