Bunge-Lenye-Meno-A-Parliament-with-Teeth-for-Tanzania-LAXNNAJ547

A Parliament with Teeth, for Tanzania
centralised system, with so much presidential power. Of course, the
president is the leader of CCM, the majority party. Of course, he doesn’t
want CCM to go down. Of course, he wants to keep as many seats as
possible in the coming years. But the president has realised that
parliament has a role to play – in the opposition, but also in respect of
the composition of his own party.
Tanzania is now a small village in the larger world. Interactions
between countries are more frequent and more important than even a
decade ago. About 40% of our budget is funded by international
institutions – bilateral donors, the World Bank and the African
Development Bank. For the development budget, more than 80% of
our expenditure comes from abroad. We are no longer a country which
can make decisions in isolation.
Varieties of aid
It is useful to understand the difference between direct project financing
and General Budget Support (GBS). For example, direct project finance
is preferred by USAID, the official American aid agency. They say: “We
will build this bridge”. They will send an American official to disperse
funds. They will make payments directly to the contractor.
These kinds of donors are accountable to their nations. They report to
their own jurisdictions. They do not have to report to the parliament of
Tanzania. USAID is notorious. In Tanzania, because of the problem of
AIDS, the American Ambassador himself wants to go and distribute
condoms to A, B, C and D. But when we look into the government
budget here, we are not able to trace any of the American money which
is funding the response to AIDS.
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