Wednesday, September 2, 2009

FT exposes Tanzania's culture of allowances

In an article published on July 29 the Financial Times exposes the consequences of Tanzania's allowance culture. The article describes the case of Zenufa Pharamceuticals which came to Tanzania with the promise of quick (within 3 month) approvals for its drugs. But one and a half year and 13 million dollar in investments later, the company is still waiting.

Zenufa blames the lack of progress on a culture of allowances leading to a situation where officials are away from the office instead of doing their job.

Shame that allowances are now such an obstacle to doing business that one of the most influential financial newspapers in the world feels the need to expose Tanzania. Maybe efforts to attract foreign investors by projecting a positive image abroad could start at home?

For the full article go to:



Gloria

3 comments:

  1. interesting blog and an important issue. Our Great Leader promised to address this in his first year and commissioned a report from Mr Ntukamazina which seems to have been quietly shelved. Why get rid of a system that underpins the patronage that our state rests on?

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  2. Paying civil servants well and holding them accountable for performance makes sense. The point of the Rajani essay and the FT article is that the allowances create a warped incentive-- instead of performing their core functions the civil servants run off to workshops all the time -- and work doesnt get done.

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  3. well it all starts from development aid, where performance is measured by flow of $$s...resulting in meetings, sitting allowances, training workshops...'quick wins' as they say...a practice that does not favour positive change, does not support the much needed systemic changes that take time

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