Pulling out of Alat would be a mistake, Ukawa told

Dar es Salaam. On April 8 this year, members of the Association of Local Authorities in Tanzania (Alat), elected Shinyanga Municipal Council mayor, Mr Gulam Mukadam, as the body’s national chairperson. He managed to get 179 votes out of 281 cast in the election held in Dodoma.

Mr Gulam will, for the next five years, serve as the chairperson of the association established on December 13, 1984. The association brings together 168 members from local authorities in the country, which involve towns, district, municipal and city councils.

According to the Alat constitution, the association is, among other things, mandated to make by-laws for local authorities as well as deal with challenges which the authorities in the country face.

Alat acts as a think tank, which comes up with plans on how to better operations of local authorities as well as propose changes in policies in order to make the authorities effective. In a nutshell, Alat is charged with defending interests and the welfare of local authorities in the country.

However, mayors and chairmen from 26 local authorities recently elected from opposition parties, which make Ukawa -- a loose coalition of four opposition parties, is not happy with the way the Alat has been operating. The leaders from Ukawa, which is made up of Chadema, CUF, NLD and NCCR-Mageuzi, said during the recent Alat meeting in Dodoma that there was a need for overhauling the association’s constitution for it to reflect the country’s political reality of today. They even threatened to pull out of the group if their demand is not met.

Much as the Alat constitution was constituted during a mono party era, the Ukawa members of Alat are pushing for a friendly environment in which opposition parties will effectively operate within the association.

They are also calling for the introduction of a system whereby the Controller and Auditor General will be mandated to audit the Alat books and finances.

Elaborating, the secretary of the Ukawa Alat members, Mr Kalist Lazaro, said they wanted to have a system through which seats would be set aside in the Alat executive committee for opposition political parties.

Such a system was in practice in local authorities themselves and parliamentary oversight committees, he said, as he stressed the need for introducing a proportional representation in the body.

The Alat secretary general, Mr Habraham Shamumoyo, nevertheless, dismissed the call, arguing that the meeting held in Dodoma had no powers to make the proposed changes on grounds that it was only the Alat congress which was vested with powers of amending the constitution.

Mr Shamumoyo said even the constitution in use was endorsed by a congress meeting, showing the Ukawa members the door if they were not happy with the association following its procedures preventing them from attaining what they wanted to achieve.

There has been mixed reactions from what transpired during the recent Alat meeting with some people supporting the need for changes, but criticising the way Ukawa had politicised the issue.

The former Dar es Salaam Mayor, Mr Adam Kimbisa, said in an interview with The Political Platform that although he had not heard details of the Ukawa demands, all documents, save for the Bible and Quran, guided operations of associations which ought to change with time.

“There is no need for refusing proposals on making changes which will revolutionaries the Alat operations. If the scenario in which Alat is operating has changed, the association should also change its constitution to reflect the changes,” he insisted.

A lecturer with the Political Science and Good Governance Department at the University of Dar es Salaam, Mr Elijah Kondi, said Ukawa might be right in demanding the changes, but their threat to withdraw from the association was misplaced.

Mr Kondi said the Ukawa demands were appropriate because they wanted to enable Alat to transform with time, but the way they were pushing for the changes was incorrect.

“We’ve many examples where Ukawa withdrew or boycotted something as a way of pushing for their demands and they flopped. Therefore, I would not like to advise them to withdraw from Alat as a way of attaining their wishes,” he said, adding:

“Ukawa should be sure of the impact they would cause if they withdraw from Alat. Will they make any impact? Definitely not, as their number is insignificant. They boycotted the Alat election, but it was held. We also saw them several times walking out of Parliament, but things went ahead even without them.”

The university don advises Ukawa to find another way of pushing for their demands because if they decided to withdraw, chances for them to form their legal platform to forward their interests will be slim.

“They should stop from using the media for seeking sympathy, for some of the things need legal backing. There is a possibility of using the prevailing system to lodge their complaints.

“They can use the Prime Minister’s Office or even engage the President’s Office through its Regional Administration and Local Government’s Office and still attain what they desire,” he explained.

Reconciliation

Sikika executive director Irenei Kiria said there was no need for Ukawa and Alat to show off their muscles over this issue, as there was a possibility for both sides to sit together and discuss it.

“If they engage one another in talks, they will arrive at an amicable agreement for the benefit of each side and in so doing, making Alat even stronger,” he pointed out.

The former NCCR-Mageuzi secretary general, Mr Samwel Ruhuza, also supported the Ukawa demands, saying they were anchored on weaknesses existing in the 1977 Constitution, explaining that Alat would be a strong body if its presence was recognised in the supreme law.

“If you scrutinise how local authorities are governed and operate, you’ll notice serious weaknesses. A prime minister has powers to cancel any local authority. And if Ukawa withdraws from Alat, the Prime Minister might cancel the authorities,” he cautioned.

He, however, noted that Alat though lacked any powers over operations of local governments; it could still push activities local governments carry out if there was a close involvement of all Alat members regardless of their ideological differences.

Other challenges

Prof Honest Ngowi of Mzumbe University said Alat could be more productive through assisting local authorities to come up with alternative revenue sources instead of dwelling on such issues.

“Records show that local authorities have been lagging behind in revenue collection. They need to work with the private sector to beef up their collections.

“Political bickering will not help them. They are supposed to invite experts who will teach them on how they can improve operations especially on revenue collection,” he said.

Prof Ngowi, an expert in economy, said Alat, for instance, was supposed to fight against the government’s decision to allow Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to collect property tax -- a major source of revenue local authorities should cling on.

Former Alat chairman and Dar es Salaam City Council mayor, Dr Didas Masaburi, nonetheless, said towards the end of last year that the association was persuading decision makers to devise a policy paper on decentralisation by devolution.

“The policy hinges on four pillars, fiscal decentralisation, administrative decentralisation, and fresh central-local relations,” said the former Alat chairman, adding: “The overarching goal is to enable the people at grassroots level to make their own decisions, oversee them, and push for their own development.”