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In this paper I shall discuss the factors weighing on President
Julius Nyerere as he determined these policies and try to assess their
impact on the course of Tanzania’s development.
Background
Tanganyika* was exploited for slaves and ivory for centuries, but
nothing that could be termed economic development occurred until after
1884 when Germany claimed the territory as a colony. The Germans introduced sisal, coffee, tea, cotton, and rubber
estates but did not encourage African cultivation of cash crops. Following World War I, a mandate was given to the United Kingdom
to administer the country. Crop
production expanded gradually during the interwar period, but little
new capital was invested. The
second World War brought a spurt of production of sisal, cotton, coffee
and foodstuffs. (22)
*Tanganyika
united with Zanzibar in April 1964, to become the United Republic of
Tanzania.
Following the War, Tanganyika continued to expand primary crop
production at a healthy rate. From
1948 to 1963 only six countries had an annual compound rate of increase
of total crop output of more than 5%, and Tanganyika was one of them. The major expansion was in sisal, cotton and
coffee. It was brought about largely (68%) by an expansion of acreage,
with 25% of the increase due to high yields and only 7% to the
introduction of new crops. (10)
By independence in December 1961, the national product was
estimated at L 103,300,000, roughly L 20 per head, and 53% came from
agriculture. Agricultural
and livestock products accounted for 80% of exports. (28)
The population at independence was estimated to be 9.4 million,
including over 20,000 Europeans and nearly 100,000 Asians (Indians,
Pakistanis and Goans). Trade
and small manufacturing was largely in the hands of the Asians, while
the Europeans were mainly administrators, estate managers, and employees
of international firms.
Primary education expanded rapidly after the war, from 124,000
places to 450,000, but only one in eight of those entering school went
beyond four years. By 1960
only 480 had completed 12 years of school and sat for the Cambridge
School Certificate examination. At
independence, Tanganyika had less than 100 African university graduates.
(22, 28)
A little over a month after Tanganyika became independent, Julius
Nyerere resigned as Prime Minister in order to work on party
organization. It was a typical Nyerere move, audacious, unprecedented,
impetuous, but motivated by what he regarded to be a crisis in his
country. He was to return to state office in eleven months’ time as
the first President of the new Republic, but in the meantime he toured
the countryside bolstering party organization and sense of purpose. He was aware that the Tanganyika African National Union had had
little purpose or plan since it was formed in 1954 but to achieve
independence. Now it was
necessary to define new goals, to make the people understand that
independence did not mean instant prosperity.
Nyerere had preached Uhuru na Kazi, Freedom and Work,
since 1959, but the accent in most people’s minds was naturally on the
former. Now, with
independence duly celebrated, he began his efforts to accent the latter.
His campaign was labeled “Self-Help.”
All community development campaigns have their defects, and this
was no exception. Roads
were built leading nowhere, schools put up with no hope of teachers; it
is a familiar story. But
perhaps, for a year, this one was more successful than most. It brought a sense of participation to the people in rural
Tanganyika that they had not felt before, a sense of nationhood and of
progress. And it gave their
leader a chance to arouse the country people and to experience their
response. If the economic
returns were not great, they were almost certainly more than their
opportunity cost. (15)
From the unplanned and uncoordinated self-help program,
Tanganyika moved to a campaign for the resettlement of scattered rural
populations in villages. This
was based on an analysis of the country’s development potential
published by the World Bank just prior to independence. It had been prepared by a nine-man Bank Mission that visited the
country in 1959. Agricultural
policy was stressed, and the recommendations made a major impact on
Nyerere and his Government. (28)
The Mission noted the highly satisfactory performance of
Tanganyika over the preceding fifteen years in increasing agricultural
exports and predicted continued progress for a few years. But the Mission warned in strong terms that traditional African
farming methods would lead increasingly to depletion of soil fertility
and to erosion, and that Tanganyika would progressively exhaust
certain comparatively easy development possibilities. They judged that in most areas, traditional methods had a low
level of productivity, incapable of being increased rapidly in order to
raise the living standard, incapable of a major contribution to the
economy and incapable of yielding satisfactory returns on capital
investment. While it was
important that the Government continue such “improvement” programs
as extension, the Mission recommended, for the longer run, a
“transformation” approach, with the dual aims of making more
productive use of land while protecting its fertility, and of
instituting the type of farming which would justify the injection of
capital.
“Transformation” was a concept that fitted very well with
Nyerere’s social ideas. While
the Bank Mission did not specify organizational forms for the
implementation of the recommendations, Nyerere saw that resettlement
of the rural population into progressive agricultural villages could
meet the economic requirements outlined by the Mission and at the same
time provide a framework for social integration. Traditionally, rural habitations were scattered over the
countryside, making it difficult for Government to provide educational
or health facilities, water supplies, or community instruction. A program of “villagization,” as it was initially called,
could provide the social setting for the “transformation” of
agricultural practices.
In December 1962, the village settlement program was launched. A
Nyerere speech fired up the regional leaders, who promptly began
organizing new settlements, often with little regard for soil fertility
or cropping feasibility in the area selected. Some saw in the settlements a way of disposing of unwanted
unemployed people from the towns, others a way to reward cronies or
relatives with leadership positions. For many reasons these ill-planned ventures were up against heavy
odds, and it is not surprising that most quickly failed.
The Government program began more cautiously. An Israeli expert came in to advise the Government and
recommended, among other things, that five pilot projects be set up and
studied for five years before undertaking any major national investment.
Tanzania was, and is, a country in a hurry; there was no chance
that such advice would be heeded. A Village Settlement Commission was soon appointed, and the
program became the focus of rural development activities under the Five
Year Plan, 1964-69. Sixty
village settlements, with capital investments averaging L 150, 000 each,
were to be started under the plan. The Government credited the World Bank Report with providing
guidance for this policy.
But the Bank should not be held responsible for what followed. The organizational, financial and personnel problems suffered by
the Village Settlement Commission were immense. In late 1965 a highly qualified team of British economists was
invited to review Tanzania’s progress during the first year of the
Plan. Their report was not
made public, hut it was quickly apparent that they considered the
settlement schemes overcapitalized and disastrous. After considering the evidence, the Tanzania Government agreed,
and no more pilot schemes were initiated. In all, five of the new-type
settlements had been set up, and
all but one were given no hope of ever becoming economically viable.
Perhaps even more disappointing to the President were reports
that the peasants settled on the schemes had failed to develop the
desired social attitudes. They
were reluctant to acknowledge the debt incurred by their settlements (L
130,000 out of L 150,000 was to be repaid) and they continually raised
new demands for additional Governmental support.
The goal of transformation was not, however, abandoned. Most of the unspent capital allocation was transferred to the
Ministry of Works, but the Village Settlement Commissioner, and the
Ministry of Lands, Settlement and Water Supply into which his
organization had been incorporated, were ordered to find other, less
expensive, ways to bring transformation about. Months were spent agonizing over new approaches, but the
ideas inevitably came to sound much like “improvement” measures,
already the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. By the end of 1966, it had not proved possible to define a new
and different approach.
January
1967
President Nyerere spent January of 1967 touring rural Tanzania. It was his most extensive rural tour since the year before he
became President, and it may be an appropriate time to pause and review
briefly several events of the previous four years that may have been on
his mind; for he was to follow this rustic sojourn with a series of
policy statements that would change Tanzania’s course.
Tanzanian diplomacy could not be described as successful. Although Nyerere personally maintained broad international
prestige, disputes with Germany over the East German representation in
Zanzibar and with the United Kingdom over Rhodesia had cost Tanzania
most of the aid she expected from two of her three largest donors. This was not entirely Tanzania’s fault, at least in the German
case, and Nyerere interpreted these events to mean that a country could
not depend on foreign aid if it was to conduct its affairs in a
principled fashion. (20)
By January 1967, the five-year plan period was half over.
Recurrent expenditures had risen by between 13% and 14% a year,
well in excess of the 6% planned rate. Investment was proceeding at only 65% of the planned rate, but
this was not due to capital restraints; indeed, each year there was 6%
more capital available than it was found possible to utilize. Project planning and management were the
bottlenecks. Investment by Government corporations was only 30% of the planned
level. (7)
Employment statistics were equally discouraging. Between 1962 and
1966, employment fell by nearly one-sixth while the wage bill rose by
almost 40%. A minimum wage
bill had the effect of lowering employment in the lower categories. In the rural areas, per capita purchasing power was not more than
5% above what it was at independence. The gap between the standard of living of employed urban workers
and the peasant cultivators was widening rapidly. (7) The peasants were
doing their share. Cotton
and coffee production approached 1970 target levels in 1966. Sisal, the other major crop, but largely estate-grown, declined
in output sharply in 1965 and 1966. This was due to a 50% drop in the world price between 1964 and
1965. (7) Ironically, sisal is the only crop in which Tanzania’s share
of the world market is significant. About one third of the world’s supply is grown in
Tanzania. The World Bank Mission had been more optimistic about sisal
prices, but apart from that, their projection of continued healthy
increase in primary product production was essentially correct. This is not to imply the increase was
automatic. It took hard and dedicated effort on the part of the Ministry of
Agriculture, working with one jealous eye on the funds squandered by the
unsuccessful “transformation” projects.
So, while the economy was not on the verge of disaster, the
increase in agricultural output which held it up was not as encouraging
as it might have been, because not only was the increase forecast by the
Mission, but it was specifically labeled a short-run phenomenon,
incapable of sustained performance. And the long-run corrective, the “transformation” scheme,
had failed.
One other event deserves mention before we proceed. In October 1966, the Government announced that Tanzanian
university students, all of whose scholarships were Government-financed,
would be expected to spend two years in the National Service upon
graduation. Actually, the
scheme would not affect the students particularly adversely. After a few weeks in basic training they would be assigned to
positions in the Government similar to those for which they would have
been eligible anyway. Their
emoluments would be somewhat smaller, but they were tax free, and
clothing would be provided by the National Service. It was not a large sacrifice to ask of people whose
education
was costing the country twenty times the average national income per
year for three years; but it was not explained well to the students. It was announced flatly, without details, and the students
demonstrated in protest. The
demonstration was not in good taste, and when they confronted the
President with signs implying that colonialism was better than their
present Government, he had their names taken and they were expelled from
the university. They
represented about one third of Tanzania’s total enrollment at the
University College, Dar es Salaam. Nyerere took the episode to be an indication that privileged
groups with little regard for the welfare of the country were developing
in Tanzania.
This belief, that nascent classes were developing, became
prominent
in Nyerere’s mind and he wasted little time in acting on it. Later the same month Nyerere announced a cut of 10% in his own
salary. The Ministers and civil servants quickly followed suit and a
broad decrease was then legislated. In March 1967, the Ministers “voluntarily” gave up their
Mercedes official cars. But
the major attack on privilege came in February, in the Arusha
Declaration, and to this we now turn.
(continued)
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