Why work when you can sit.

Let's help Prime Minister Pinda

2010-01-18T10:36:00.000+02:00

In a discussion with newspaper editors, Prime Minister Pinda has suggested that all allowance payments have to be approved by his office http://dailynews.co.tz/home/?n=6735&cat=home. The Prime Minister's initiative to cap allowance payments is laudable.

I would like to help the Prime Minister monitor allowance payments, by publishing pictures of notice boards in hotel lobbies reflecting the day's meetings. I have a few but need many more. If people send their picture to me, I will post them pictures on this blog website and flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gloriatwiga/

Please help and email your pictures to: gloriatwiga@gmail.com

Gloria

Bold move by Minister Shamsa Mwangunga

2009-12-30T10:43:00.001+02:00

Speaking during the inauguration of the board of directors for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, Shamsa Mwangunga the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism announced a ban on non-essential travel abroad.

The Minister said that personal benefit instead of professional reasons had become a motivation behind many trips and that officials not directly linked to promotional activities will no longer travel abroad.

The move by the Minister is a bold one that deserves to be followed by others. Whose next?

Cheerio
Gloria
(the full article an be found at: http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=16480)

Pressure on allowances increases

2009-12-29T12:46:00.000+02:00

A number of public officials started to speak out against allowances over the Christmas period. Mr Mwapachu, Tanga Member of Parliament (CCM) and Ms Bafadhili, Special Seats MP (CUF) criticized proposed plans to implement Kilimo Kwanza because too much money would be spent on workshops. Or, according to Ms Bafdhili in the Sunday Citizen of 27 December:

"The plan is defective because a huge chunk of the money will be used as allowances for experts and leaders as they attend seminars while little will be used to improve farming. This plan is not targeting the farmer".

Mr Mwapuchu added:

"This is a shame. Our colleagues from other regions will be amazed to hear that we have passed a plan which focuses on paying allowances to experts instead of improving farming.

On the same day the Guardian on Sunday published an interview with Mageuzi National Chairman James Mbatia who argued that unless the government freezes the culture of allowances, Tanzanians should never expect their taxes to bring tangible results in their lives. He asked the government for reform stating:

"In my opinion it is high time the government reviewed the allowance culture because it does not help this nation in anyway”

Change is in the air,

Gloria

Sending 95 people to COP 15 led to success

2009-12-23T10:14:00.000+02:00

In today's Citizen (http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=16428) the State Minister in the Vice President's Office (environment) Dr. Burian explains how the Copenhagen Climate conference was a success even though the conference failed to agree to most of Tanzania's recommendations.

The good news is that a special commission has been formed and that next year there will be another climate conference. In Mexico this time. Maybe more delegates could be sent to that meeting, just to be sure that that conference will be successful too.

Happy holidays,

Gloria

Benefits and draw backs of per diems

2009-12-22T14:29:00.000+02:00

The latest brief by U4 discusses per diems and seeks to answer whether allowances distort good governance in the health sector. Worth reading: http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/3523-benefits-and-drawbacks-of-per-diems.pdf

Gloria

Allowances cause climate change

2009-12-17T08:48:00.000+02:00

95 Tanzanian delegates attend the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen (http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15970). As most of these delegates fly business class their carbon footprint for the flight alone (so excluding hotel, local travel etc) equals the annual carbon footprint of 3,325 Tanzanians!

How I know? Check out: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx. It shows how a business class flight Dar es Salaam - Copenhagen produces 3.85 tonnes CO2 per person. It also shows how the average Tanzanian produces 0.11 tonnes of CO2 per year.

When the carbon footprint of one delegate equals that of 35 citizens, 95 delegates create the same footprint as over three thousand Tanzanians do during an entire year.

The reason for all these delegates visiting Copenhagen is clear: allowances. So allowances are not only bad for service delivery, they cause climate change,

Have a good day

Gloria

--

International coverage of Tanzania's allowance culture

2009-12-07T07:41:00.000+02:00

Earlier I presented a piece from the Financial Times that referred to the allowance culture. Now more international news sources are picking it up. For instance,

http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/tanzanian-papers-focus-on-public-dismay-over-war-on-corruption-2009120539572.html

Enjoy, Gloria

Kilango does not pay allowances

2009-12-03T08:57:00.000+02:00

An interesting read from Tanzania Daima:

MP for Same East (CCM), Anne Kilango had to escape wrath of 300 angry women in Mwanga district on Monday. They were blocking her car, demanding allowance for a meeting that she called. In the end, district UWT secretary, Luciano Sagati intervened and took her away. Kilango had called the meeting to congratulate women who won in the recent civic elections. When contacted, she said: “There was no question of me paying transport or any allowance to over 400 participants, for not only it was not budgeted but that would amount to bribery”. (Tanzania Daima)

This can only mean that Mrs Kilango (and the other 300+ MPs) regularly refuse allowances since they would not want to be accused of bribery!

Gloria

Reforming allowances

2009-12-02T09:45:00.000+02:00

Policy Forum has prepared a very nice paper on allowances. The paper was released to inform the 2009 Annual Policy Dialogue and is called Reforming Allowances: A Win-Win Approach to Improved Service Delivery, Higher Salaries for Civil Servants and Saving Money.

The paper and can be downloaded from the policy forum website: http://www.policyforum-tz.org/node/7176 and is worth reading.

The PF paper received front page coverage in The Guardian (19 November 2009) and The Citizen (21 November 2009) and again on 02 December 2009. Here are some links:

http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15970
http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15661

Enjoy Gloria

World Bank's disbursement culture leads to bad service delivery just like culture of allowances

2009-10-28T09:15:00.001+02:00

In a blog posted on the CDG website http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2009/10/when-the-culture-of-disbursement-meets-the-culture-of-corruption.php, Steve Berkman argues that the World Bank's 'culture of disbursement' creates a situation in which embezzlement and theft of World Bank funds may be the rule rather than the exception.

Berkman claims that World Bank managers are more interested in making sure that money goes out the door, than in making sure that money is well spent. He states "...workshops, conferences and projects aimed at “reducing vulnerabilities” or “reforming governance” are so much more palatable to the organization’s managers than digging up evidence of wrongdoing and pressuring governments to prosecute and recover funds.

Culture of disbursement = culture of allowances

Sounds familiar?

It seems that irrespective of the reason, when (international) public servants face incentives that are not aligned with the purpose of their work, one should expect waste, corruption and disappointing results.

The Government of Tanzania already has a report on how to align civil servant's incentives which quality service delivery (the Presidential Pay Commission's report). The World Bank should follow Tanzania's example and prepare its own report. And when it is ready, the World Bank should implement its recommendations!

Gloria

When sitting allowances drive business processes....

2009-10-27T08:57:00.001+02:00

The Citizen follows up on Pay Comission Report

2009-10-12T12:04:00.001+02:00

In an article published in the Citizen last Saturday, the newspaper queries the status is of the report of the Presidential Pay Commission and asks when the promised raise in salaries will come into effect. The full report can be found at: http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=14794.

Interesting detail: the report uses information from this blog!

Gloria

Meetings for the sake of meetings

2009-09-17T10:58:00.000+02:00

Here is another nice column by Rakesh Rajani. It is from the Citizen of 23 July 2007. Enjoy,

Gloria

Meetings for the sake of meetings

Two years ago my son Amar, who was three years old then, asked me: “Baba, these meetings you go to everyday, how do you have so much to talk about?” At another time he wondered when I get my work done when I was in meetings all the time.

Most people in Tanzania, and in the world, do what my son would call real work. They farm the land, drive daladalas, launder clothes, cook food, build buildings, write books, teach, heal the sick. These people also meet from time to time, to make arrangements to ferry a child to hospital, or raise money for school fees, or decide what food to cook for the festival. But the meetings are few, and focused on getting something done.

In contrast, there is a special group of people in Dar es Salaam whose main job is to meet, including meeting to plan for the next meeting. They ‘dialogue’ about development in Tanzania. The dialogue is organized around lots of acronyms. The top one is MKUKUTA (it used to be PRS), which has many levels, such the TC, CWGs and RAWG. Some of these are meant to meet weekly, others monthly; though at times when drafts have to be written their members meet daily.

And then there is the PER, which has a PER Main, PER Macro, 4 different PER CWGs, and a dozen sector PER working groups. These are meant to meet every two weeks in many cases. On top, each sector (such as health, education, roads, HIV/AIDS) have their own groups. In education, for example, you have the ESDP, which has an advisory group headed by the PMO, BEDC, BEDC Task Force, RACEF, QTWG, ETWG and several sub-groups.

Since these are not enough, we also have the GBS. This focuses on the big picture and key ‘reforms’, such as LGRP, PSRP, PFM, LSRP (each of these also have their own meetings) all through a document called PAF. The donors are very keen about this since it involves them giving hundreds of billions. To guide their behaviour we have the JAST (that used to be called TAS).

The total number of people who go to these meetings is at most one thousand. They include senior government officials from key ministries, a whole bunch of donors, and a few NGO types. For a long time I have been an active member of this special group of people. In fact if there were prizes for attendance, I would have been among the top winners between 2002 and 2005.

I used to go to those meetings because I thought they would help improve important things, such as the quality of education, ensure budgets help the poor, and enable ordinary citizens to realize their rights. But the fact is that, other than long reports and a hefty business for caterers of unhealthy fried meats, these meetings achieve very little.

Meetings are constantly postponed and start late. Documents are rarely distributed in good time so most participants are unprepared. Key participants, especially on the government side, are often absent. Minutes are sloppy. Decisions made are quickly forgotten. There is no accountability for follow-up. In the end it’s hard to see how they help development.

If the meetings were a factory, it would have been closed down long ago.

Because this is known, every so often we discuss how to make the meetings more effective. I have been part of at least half a dozen such efforts in the past, but they have made little difference. There is a new effort right now, called ‘proposed new dialogue structure’ that seeks to reduce

duplication and coordination (by merging MKUKUTA and PER for instance). But I predict it too will fail, because it doesn’t go to the heart of why the dialogue has failed in the past, and because what it proposes is still too heavy and unwieldy.

The new dialogue structure should not rearrange the deckchairs on the sinking Titanic. Before you prescribe medicine, you need good diagnosis. The core problem is that the dialogue machinery is simply too heavy for government and ‘domestic’ civil society, but it largely exists to appease hundreds of donor staff who need it to feed their machinery.

Dialogue and process should not be conflated with or displace real work and performance. Instead we need something radical. We need real leadership with the guts to replace the entire dysfunctional dialogue machinery with something simple and lean, focused on helping each ministry deliver results.

Donors

2009-09-11T15:42:00.000+02:00

I came across this Dilbert and really liked it. Apparently Government is not the only one troubled by allowances.

Gloria

ThisDay: Allowances are institutionalized form of corruption

2009-09-09T10:57:00.000+02:00

Have litte to add to this editorial, published in ThisDay on Monday 07 September.

Gloria

Ministry of Education: less teachers, more allowances

2009-09-08T08:37:00.001+02:00

Last financial year (2008/2009) the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training spent 25.5 billion Shillings on allowances (source: IFMS). This is a huge amount, which does not benefit teachers who are on the payroll of Local Government. It exclusively accrues to staff of the Ministry.

To put 25,5 billion in perspective, at an average teacher salary of 300,000 (my best guess) it is equivalent to the basic wage needed to employ seven thousand teachers for one year!

What is more, the Ministry doubled its spending on allowances between 2007/8 and 2008/9. In 2007/8 it spent 11.6 billion Shillings on allowances; one year later this had increased by 120%, to 25.5 billion.

Over the same period student teacher ratios in primary schools declined from 54.5 students per teacher to 55.5 (source: Basic Education Statistics). This increase occurred mostly because the number of primary school teachers declined (from 151,231 to 149,433) but also because the number of students in primary school increased by 61,000 to 8.3 million.

Had the Ministry of Education spent the same amount on allowances in 2008/9 as in 2007/8 and had the Ministry used the increase in allowances to hire teachers, it would have prevented the deterioration in the student teacher ratio. In fact, the ratio would have improved to 54.1 students per teacher.

Less teachers, more allowances. Food for thought I would think.

Gloria

978 days since presidential pay commission finished its work

2009-09-04T16:42:00.000+02:00

I received a comment refering to the Presidential Pay commission which was commissioned to look into issues of remuneration of public servants. The work included establishing clear guidelines for the use of allowances with a view of removing the existing distortions.

The work was commissioned in May 2006. It was completed in December 2006 and reported in January 2007. The report is claimed to be a quality piece of work, but to date, 978 days after its completion, nothing has been heard of it.

Gloria

Staff in ministries pocket quarter of their wage as allowances

2009-09-04T16:11:00.001+02:00

Hard fact demonstrates the degree to which allowances have grown out of control. According to data from the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) staff employed by the government receive allowances worth 19% of their basic salaries.

Those working for the central ministries are most priviliged: they pocket allowances equal to a 26% of their basic wage.

Compared to this, staff working at the front line of service delivery such as teachers and nurses are a very modest bunch. Their salary top ups equal 'only' 8% of their basic salary.

Gloria

FT exposes Tanzania's culture of allowances

2009-09-02T11:41:00.001+02:00

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:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/832f89ea-7c4f-11de-a7bf-00144feabdc0.html

Gloria

2009-09-01T07:33:00.000+02:00

Leadership Code

In February 2008 president Kikwete received praise for his commitment to introduce a leadership code which would force political leaders to make a choice between serving the nation as businesspeople or as politicians (http://ip-216-69-164-44.ip.secureserver.net/ipp/guardian/2008/02/02/107552.html).

A leadership code provides a welcome seperation of politics and business. And it put an end to the habit of public officials earning big allowances just for on the boards of companies; many of which they have to oversee in any case as part of their job.

On 24 August at the opening of the international conference on social justice held at the White Sands Hotel in Dar es Salaam president Kikewete reiterated his promise. Unfortunately he did not indicate by when the leadership code can be expected.

I really hope the president succeeds in bringing the leadership code to light.

Gloria

Public servants do well

2009-08-31T16:35:00.001+02:00

Has anyone seen the latest results of the household budget survey? It shows how poverty amongst civil servants is lowest amongst all employment categories. Of course, I would not like civil servants to be poor, but still it is uncomfortable knowing that those meant to serve the public do relatively well.

Gloria

Why work when you can sit

2009-08-31T07:11:00.000+02:00

Meetings, meetings, meetings. Often I wonder what all they are all about. Is it to get the job done, or just to earn some extra. In this blog I will share my meeting experiences, and invite all you out there to do the same.

I take inspiration from a column by Rakesh Rajani in the Citizen newspaper. The column is below:

Why work when you can sit?
By Rakesh Rajani
Published 2 July 2007 in The Citizen

Unless you are particularly energetic, you are probably sitting while you read this newspaper. Sitting at your desk or dining table. Sitting on your sofa or on the daladala. Sitting is not a very remarkable or strenuous activity. And yet, for some of us, it can be extremely lucrative.

Top Government (and NGO) officials and Members of Parliament (MPs) are paid handsomely for sitting in workshops and meetings. If the meetings are located outside station, even better, since that will also get you a transport allowance which far exceeds the actual cost of travel. And if those workshops and meetings occur on a weekend, then a healthy “extra duty” allowance may be added.

Allowances make the rich richer. It is permanent secretaries and directors and senior officers who get fat allowances, not ordinary teachers and workers. And they are largely untaxed. So I get Shs 300,000 for a half day government or NGO Board meeting on top of my decent salary, more than what the security guard takes home in a month, but his salary is taxed while my allowance is not. Others like the Bank of Tanzania directors, I am told, get a cool 1.5 million.

Worse still, allowances distort priorities. Work at ministries and councils slows down as leaders run off to seminars in Kibaha and Bagamoyo and Ngurdoto, Why do your job when you can be ‘sensitized’ or ‘capacity built’ at a nice hotel over sumptuous meals and hefty pay? Some have gotten particularly skilled at this, and are able to attend three workshops in one day!

We should not begrudge leaders the remuneration they deserve. But leaders already get relatively better wages and benefits, and the real question is whether paying allowances is the best use of public money. Every allowance paid means less for books and tap water and nurses’ salaries. Money for allowances does not fall from heaven; it is public money, from the VAT paid by the grandmother buying soap and the PAYE paid by the guard who keeps me safe.

In case you think I am talking about a small problem, think again. The Government spends about one billion shillings every day on allowances, or over 300 billion shillings a year. This is about a third of the total wage bill for civil servants. Another 345 billion is likely to be spent in the coming financial year. News reports indicate that just 320 of our leaders, the MPs, are to get an additional 9.3 billion in allowances this year. NGOs also dish out billions.

What do these numbers mean? Shs 345 billion is more than the total amount allocated to the entire water sector, and nearly the same as what has been allocated to the sector that sustains over half of all Tanzanians – agriculture. Shs 9.3 billion is enough to fund in-service training for over 32,000 primary school teachers or buy textbooks for 2.3 million primary school students.

Which MP is ready to stand up and say that their allowances are more important than schoolbooks or training for thousands of teachers? Which Government Minister is ready to defend a billion on daily allowances when health centres go without medicines and police stations lack paper?

In her budget speech, the Minister of Finance lamented that available resources cover only half the total MKUKUTA requirements. Yet we can afford to pay billions in allowances? The truth is that sitting allowances are a cancer that undermines public service, drains public resources and erodes public trust. The good news is that practical action can be taken.

First, allowances should be taxed at source, like regular income. Indeed, this is what the law states, though it is virtually never applied. If a 30% withholding tax was applied, this would realize over 100 billion in the coming year. This is much more than the levy on kerosene, and many other budget measures over which there has been great hue and cry.

Second, there should be transparency. All allowances should be clearly demarcated in the budget, and institutions that pay allowances should be required to disclose amounts and persons paid on public notice-boards and on the internet. Why not if there is nothing to hide? This openness will allow a more informed debate on the value of allowances.

Third, let’s stop the euphemisms. Transport allowances should be reimbursements for actual costs. It makes no sense to pay, for example, Shs 50,000 transport allowance when the officer uses the company car or the taxi would cost hardly 5,000.

Fourth, sitting allowances should be abolished. Public servants should be paid a decent wage for real work, not perks to sit in chairs. Doing so will save billions, get rid of distorted incentives, and create more equity. It may also make leaders healthier, if we sit less and move more. Kasi mpya, any one?