FLY ON THE WALL : There is no such thing as free money

Following the recent visit to Kenya of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, I happened to attend a pre-bidders conference in Dar es Salaam, where an agency of the United Nations, UNCDF, was briefing prospective applicants for business funding.

Mr Zuckerberg, it is said, is looking to invest in or buy the mobile money platform M-Pesa, which is also in Tanzania. As a consequence of that visit and the goings-on in that meeting, I address this to our policy makers, would-be small and micro enterprise owners and other prospective investors.

There exists a rich platform to build a new Tanzania, more so under a new government that is determined to rein in graft and live within its means.

This government under President John Magufuli also makes the right noises about recognising the importance of small and micro enterprises.

To those of you who have ideas, your dreams may be valid. However, the validity of your dreams will depend on how much you are willing to get out of the entitlement mentality. It is always shocking to hear would-be entrepreneurs and SME owners complaining about stringent terms set by lenders and equity investors, among others, as if there is someone out there who is willing to dish out cash without any conditions. This cannot be expected even of billionaires such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

At the UNCDF event, a gentleman who nearly brought the house down takes the cake. He cited his supposedly long service in senior government positions and PhD as reason enough to make his ideas particularly special and irresistible.

His rant, for that is what it was, was positive in the sense that it brought out the extent to which our people feel that it is their inalienable right to be funded and that any potential financier who makes conditions stringent is 1) wasting time 2) a dream stealer (sic) and has no business being in “our country.”

The desire to go Ad hominen works for some just as the desire to take refuge in uzawa (we are nationals, where can you take us?) works for others, especially when one is out of their depth. Remember the gathering was as diverse as it could be – retired men and women as well as recent graduates trying their hand in this uncertain world of self-actualisation. They all need encouragement as policy documents tell us that the private sector, particularly small and medium industries, is the next frontier for growth and employment generation.

To make that happen, we need to ask ourselves not what uzawa (our sense of belonging to Tanzania) can do for us but what we can do for Tanzania. Our intimidation of investors and interlocutors, who too have their own terms of reference as we have ours, will not do us any favours.

Indeed, in the gathering were people who asked all kinds of relevant questions, including how participants could be sure that their intellectual property was protected from infringement by unscrupulous persons and we know, by history, that these things have happened even within the corridors of the much respected UN.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund is an initiative for 48 least developed countries, including Tanzania, which is being implemented through a local funding initiative to ensure that the likes of NMB and CRDB, among others, are guaranteed well enough to fund small and medium-sized infrastructure projects.

The terms are, so to speak, normal – feasibility study, market study, licensing, rights to use land and the right staff. And it says you need to have an idea where to get them – nothing to get on our nationalistic bicycle about. After all, there are 47 other countries where, if the initiative can work without intimidation and resistance, life will go on.

All I am saying is we need each other, so let’s meet halfway.