STRAIGHT TALK : Tanzania and ‘material event’ syndrome

Once again it has been proved we are a nation of ‘material events’ and thus we could easily be swayed one or the other.

What I call ‘material event’ is when something occurs and all eyes and ears head that way. This can happen at the national level, when as a country we all discuss that same issue and most of the time it becomes what American President George Bush termed as “you are either with us or with them”.

In the recent past, there were the famous ‘Blue Buses’ aka ‘Mwendo Kasi’, all the nation’s energy was directed that way, with a discussion ensuing whether this was “a development” or not; and, one had to choose a side, and to be careful not to choose the wrong one.

You choose the wrong side if you argued on our preparedness for the management, sustainability, economic viability and the very culture which goes with the use of public property as we had seen with National Stadium ‘material event’.

This was later followed by the Kigamboni Nyerere Bridge, which I wonder why it was not called Aboud Jumbe Bridge given the fact that we have already honoured Nyerere a million times.

People thronged the bridge, and some even dubbed it as a new touristic spot, as surely Dar es Salaam is lacking in such sites.

Here again you were looked as if you were a stranger especially when you asked probing questions demanding to know whether the money used was legally acquired and whether the pricing was okay. You’d be labelled as being ‘anti-development’.

And now we have the Bombadier Q400 christened “Kurumbiza”. All over the sudden we seem to be forgetting about the Kagera earthquake where victims need our support both materially and psychologically.

The social media is busy on the Kurumbizas. Some are even asking where was the money came from wondering whether it was allocated in the 2015/2016 budget.

Some are asking the rationale for going for this type of planes -- competitiveness in both carrying capacity as well as fuel utilisation. Also questions are raised on value for money of this multi-million project having been beaten several times.

There is even discussion about branding and the management though a new board has been appointed but the question is do they have what it takes to run an airline with two kurumbizas but with enormous expectations and when it is already expensive to fly locally than around the region?

Finally, questions are thrown on lack of Zanzibar representation in the ATC board while the national carrier was born out of East African Airways to which Zanzibar was a partner. Hence those of us in Zanzibar having shares in the ATC and the kurumbizas?

In any case ATC will need serious and robust advertising to get a slice of the market but also new branding even if it means replacing the giraffe for something else that will help ATC break away from the past and enter a new era.

If ATC fails to reinvent itself it will be heading towards failure and which Tanzania can no longer bear...seeing airline success stories around us.