By The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania, whose aid portfolio has ballooned to over Sh3 trillion (about $2.89 billion) in its 50 years of independence, is currently Africa’s top beggar for development assistance, The Citizen on Sunday can authoritatively report today.That level of dependency makes it the third leading recipient of official development assistance (Oda) in the world after war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American organisation Visual Economics says the once-rich oil exporter Iraq tops the list of beggar nations with donations totalling about $9 billion followed by Afghanistan and Tanzania, whose development alms are nearly $4 billion and $3 billion, respectively, according to 2010 figures.

But the government yesterday questioned the accuracy of the report, saying there were many other countries that received much more in foreign assistance than Tanzania. Finance and Economic Affairs deputy permanent secretary Servacius Likwelile told The Citizen on Sunday that countries like Israel and Egypt receive a substantial amount of assistance from the US annually, and wondered whether the report included military aid.

“We need to know the criteria used in compiling the report.  What I know is that the United States  provides a great deal in assistance to countries such as Israel and Egypt, but they are not even on the list,” Dr Likwelile said.Commenting on the trend, some experts said that while begging for the top two is understandable, it is incomprehensible for Tanzania, which is not only rich in both natural resources and human capital, but has also been stable and peaceful since independence.

They wondered why, despite the staggering amounts of aid the country has been receiving for five decades, the country remains one of the poorest in the world with a third of the population living below the poverty line.
Some attributed the limited value for money on aid to bad governance, a view supported by the 2009 Human Rights Report, which states that “senior government officials estimated that 20 per cent of the government’s budget in each fiscal year was lost to corruption”.

“We are still poor despite being among the top recipients of aid in the world…this is because of poor leadership and management of the aid provided. Worst of all, we are poor managers of our God-given resources,” said Ms Saumu Jumanne, a lecturer at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education.
Saying Tanzania could forge ahead without aid, she added that foreign assistance has not helped to alleviate poverty as only a trickle reaches the targeted groups. Sometimes, she noted, even aid for orphans is misappropriated.

“What is needed is to make strategic plans and be focused on exploiting our immense natural resources for the public good. So far, the abundant natural resources we have benefit a few Tanzanians and their foreign partners.  Our education, which is supposed to guide us in transforming our nation, is grossly inadequate.

Agriculture is not being taught at primary level yet 85 per cent of the populace depends on the sector for survival. That is having our priorities wrong.”
Economist Honest Ngowi said foreign aid has not made Tanzania economically independent because the dynamics of the Oda industry are not geared at ending the dependency syndrome. He blames both donors and the authorities for aid’s failure to address the country’s development shortcomings, saying he does not foresee an end to the vicious circle of begging in the near future.But Dr Likwelile differed with this point of view, saying foreign aids had made “a lot of difference” in the water, education and health sectors.

Visual Economics, which claims to be the world leader in unravelling complexities of economic and financial data, says Africa has five of the world’s top 10 aid recipients, Asia four and the Middle East one. Using data obtained from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sources, it shows that Africa has 12 of the top 20 development assistance beggars in the world.

“The top recipient of developmental aid is Iraq, with $9.115 billion in donations. Number two is Afghanistan, with $3.951 billion in donations received. Number three is Tanzania, with $2.811 billion received in donations. Number four is Vietnam, with $2.497 billion in donations,” Visual Economics notes in a publication titled How Developmental Aid Flows Around The Globe.

“Number five is Ethiopia, with $2.422 billion in donations. Number six is Pakistan, with $2.212 billion in aid received. Number seven is Sudan, with $2.104 billion in aid received. Number eight is Nigeria, with $2.042 billion in donations received. Number nine is Cameroon, with donations of $1.933 billion received. Number 10 is Palestine with $1.868 billion in donations received,” it adds.

The US is the number one developmental aid donor with $21.787 billion donated followed by Germany and France, which donated $12.291 billion and $9.884 billion, respectively. Despite close relations between Tanzania and the US, the country is not on the list of the top 10 recipients of American aid.  Topping the list are Iraq ($4.266 billion) and Afghanistan ($1.459 billion).

According to the OECD figures, Tanzania received about $39 million (about Sh66.3 billion at current exchange rates) in foreign aid in 1961, but the amount surged to about $2.89 billion (about Sh4.91 trillion) in 2009. In terms of sectoral distribution, most of the aid in the 1960s and the early 1970s was channelled to the agricultural and transport sectors.

During the second half of the 1970s, the emphasis shifted to industry and energy. Transport became an important aid recipient in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The general pattern of aid distribution since the 1990s has been (in order of importance) transport and communications, followed by agriculture, human resources development, health, integrated regional development and energy.

Additional reporting by Mkinga Mkinga

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