We Must Identify and Constitutionalize Our National Priorities.
If you look at all developed or fast developing nations you will find that they have one thing in common, they have a set of national agendas and priorities that transcend any administration. Only a consistent and a continuation of a set of items will guarantee Tanzanias ascension to a high income nation.
I have identified four areas of priority in order of importance which should will be crucial for the next 25-50 years. These agendas are health, education, finance, and science and technology. I will explain how each fits into the grand scheme of things.
1. Health
The most important asset for any nation is its human resource. We cannot develop as a nation without ensuring that Tanzanians live a long and productive life. Health affects two aspects of our lives which is quality and quantity. Quality has to do with the way we live which encompasses physical, mental and spiritual health. Quantity involves life expectancy or the number of years we live.
The current life expectancy in Tanzania is 64. Most deaths are caused by a mixture of infectious and chronic deseases or infectious deseases which lead to chronic deseases. If you dwelve deep you will find that most Tanzanians start experiencing health related issues from their early forties. If this is the case, and if you put into consideration that most people start becoming productive members of society in their early twenties, you will discover that we only properly utilize our 'nguvu kazi' for about 20 years, 30 if we are lucky.
The problem is caused by a mixture of a still developing health care infrastructure and poor health education of most citizens. Most Tanzanians do not have a culture of doing regular health checkups and usually don’t seek medical attention until they have become physically and visibly ill. If we are to have a vibrant and productive nation our life expectancy should reach the early to mid seventies and our productive years should go up to 40 to 50 years.
How do we achieve this? First is building a culture of regular checkups from an early age. Children from primary school to secondary school should be required to have medical checkups at least once per year and a health class should be a requirement from primary school to form VI. Secondly, the government should continue with efforts to improve the health care sector by improving public health and incentivizing private health institutions to invest in research and expansion of services. Taxes on medical equipment and medicine should be removed completely to ensure we reduce the cost of healthcare.
If we can achieve a healthy nation we can achieve a strong and productive population and we can utilize our citizens better and longer. If we are to reach the next step in national development then the health sector will have to be at the forefront of this.
2. Education
Second to a healthy nation is a well trained nation. We have to formulate a system which utilizes all talents and all skill sets. Currently our education system is focused on producing as many university graduates as possible. Those with a university degree have the highest chance of entering the formal sector while those with a form IV certificate or less entering the informal market.
First thing is, at this day and age we must make it a priority that everyone should at least have a form IV certificate at a bare minimum. We should no longer be producing citizens with a primary education or less. This is because a form IV leaver can either continue with A Levels, gain admision into vocational school or gain a certificate in any field. Hence we should remove the grade seven exams as a mean of filtering those who gain admisions into O Level and those who don’t. Everyone who passes grade seven should gain admission to the next level and those who fail should be aloud to repeat until they pass.
Secondly, our O Levels should be equipped with identifying where a pupil’s talents lay. All secondary schools should have career councellors who can guide students towards the right path for them. Those who appear will not fair well in A Levels and university should be provided with an alternative and training which will allow them to gain the necessary skills to either self-employ or given training in specialized skills which do not necessarily need an A Level or univeristy education.
Third, all studies from A levels to university should be practically based to fit our environment instead of being a theorized approach to a copy and paste world that does not fit the Tanzanian environment. All studies at this level should prepare a pupil to be a critical thinker, practical and a problem solver. This is the group where Tanzania will produce its entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors and innovators so they should be prepared to see a wider view of our world instead of being pidgeon hold into what’s in their textbooks.
Fourth, we should identify the different sectors with the most need for professionals and ensure our education system produces a future work force for those fields. What are the industries that we will take Tanzania to the next level in the next 25-50 years and how do we produce a work force for those industries as of now. One quick example is science and technology. All schools at all levels should be equipped with a computer lab. Another example is the finance sector, students should be learning about finance, investment and tax as early as the fourth grade. Final example is the oil and gas industry, we should identify pupils who are consistently doing well in physics and chemistry from primary school and ensure by the time they are in their A Levels their schools are equipped with learning materials necessary to prepare them for that field.
All of this might sound radical and a mountain of a task to achieve but it is necessary for us if we are to take the next step. We are past the age of producing graduates for the sake of producing graduates without a clear plan of how they will contribute to society.
3. Finance.
All developed countries have a healthy and vibrant financial and banking sector. How do we best create a vibrant and healthy financial sector which will be the fuel to all of our developmental goals? How do we turn the Dar Es Salaam Stock Exchange into a model such as the New York Stock Exchange or London Stock Exchange?
Number one is we need an overhoul of our entire tax code. For a long time we have relied on employees and a few industries as the main source of our revenues. The government has done a good job in casting a wider net on revenue collection by formalizing many of our informal sectors. However the tax burden is still huge on individuals and SMEs. We should create a tax code which encourages young men and women to start businesses and industries.
Secondly, the government should incentivize banks to loan individuals and small businesses. This will allow Tanzanians to explore their entrepreneurial sprits and creative side. If tax is no longer a burden and interests rates a low, then many more Tanzanians, especially the youth, will flock to gain loans to invest into their ideas.
Third, we need to poach Tanzanians in the diaspora who have worked for international finantial institutions and tech companies in the U.S. and Europe. Let us incetivize them to use the knowledge they have gained in order to push innovations and move technology into Tanzania. Tanzanians of the diaspora who want to invest in financial institutions and tech companies should be given a tax holiday of at least five years and with low taxes and with access to financing from Tanzania they will be encouraged to keep most of the money they make right here in Tanzania. If we do so, Tanzania could be home to many investment and tech billionaires in the next 10 to 20 years.
4. Science and technology.
The beauty of technology in the 21st century is that it is no longer a monopoly of a few countries. Because of globalization and the internet, we do not have to lag behind by a few years before we gain access to certain technology. Innovation on this field should be encouraged from the primary school level. Young men and women with innovative ideas should be given the opportunity to have their ideas go from concept to reality. Tech hubs should be opened all over Tanzania.
We have had successful tech startups in Tanzania such as MaxMalipo, Smarcodes and the likes. But such companies are not being started at a high enough rate. We have the potential of seeing a life changing tech company being started every year. We need the Tanzanian version of Bill Gates, Steve Job, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. We need to support innovators and encourage them to create life changing inventions and innovations.
In this case also, we also need to encourage the diaspora and foreigners to partner up with local Tanzanians. For this we need startup friendly laws and a startup friendly culture and this ties in to my suggestions from part three of this article.
All of these are long term plans and long term changes that shouldn’t be disturbed by the change of administrations every ten years. We need to find the political will to put these plans in our constitution and government framework to ensure that they are our national priorities and all policies and politics should be centred around how we execute and improve on them.
I know there are those who will ask why I have not included defence and foreign relations. It is because I believe our defence and foreign relations can be tied to support the above. Our defence in the coming years will rely alot on us having our own technology because at the end of the day all foreign technology leaves our defence susceptible to splying and infiltration. We need our own technology for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. In foreign affairs, economic diplomacy is already a priority even in the current CCM manifesto. Our foreign missions will act as an important liason between our government and the brain trust we need to come and invest in Tanzania.
Thomas Joel Kibwana
