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By Polycarp Machira
The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam. Lack of political will to enable local government authorities (LGAs) to implement the decentralisation by devolution policy, known as D by D, continues to hurt development in the country.
Initiated over a decade ago with the aim of bringing the government closer to the people and make them own their development initiatives, D by D is still new to LGAs as the central government still dominates every activity.
Tanzania seems to have a de-concentrated local government system with appointees having much power at the local level. While centrally funded mandates, such as construction of secondary schools- dominate local government plans and budgets; most of the administrative decentralization is yet to occur at this level.
Stakeholders in a breakfast meeting organised by the Policy Forum in Dar es Salaam yesterday observed that without decentralisation and autonomy, the LGAs will not undertake required tasks well.A lecturer from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Prof Max Mmuya, the discussant at the meeting, described the LGAs as empty institutions that only exist on paper.
He said right from the start D by D had been good, but remained ‘a vacant shell’ following dirty politics dominated by a single political party.“There is political dominance on the LGAs which will always portray logic of power whenever it comes to implementing development projects,” he said. He added that LGAs often forget about the people they are supposed to serve when it comes to money issues.
Sharing his experience on a project he undertook to establish the decentralisation system in five districts, Prof Mmuya said there were a lot of dirty practices, impunity and discrimination, but nobody intervened.
The Legal Officer of the Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania (Alat), Mr Cleophus Manyangu, said there was a need for serious political commitment towards the policy initiative.
Presenting the organisation’s report on the matter, he said D and D must be the concern of the whole government, and not just the PMO-RALG, LGAs and Alat.
“Even some LGA leaders do not really understand what D by D means. It is therefore the role of the central government to train such people and other stakeholders also to play their part,” he advised. But the Support to Local Governance Process Programme manager, Deutsche Gesellchaft fur Internationale (GIZ), Mr Hans-Jurgen Cassens, criticised lack of civic education on the D by D policy.
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