My former editor, during my apprentice days at the Daily News in 1977/78, Makwaia wa Kuhenga was very angry the other day over Tanzania’s failure to keep its wings, Air Tanzania Limited Company, ATCL, in the air.
He said he could not understand how Tanzania could fail in what its neighbours, Kenya and Uganda, have succeeded, keeping their respective wings in the air.
For those who do not know the history of this country, especially that part relating to its public institutions, it is very easy to dismiss Mkwaia’s arguments with the wave of a hand.
Yet for some of us who witnessed the birth of ATCL’s predecessor, Air Tanzania Corporation, ATC, there is nothing so painful than the mere knowledge that that airline has failed to remain in the air!
Of the three East African countries that formed the original East African Community, EAC, no country showed the world that it stood to succeed in airline industry more than Tanzania!
For unlike Kenya and Uganda, for some inexplicable reasons, Tanzania had more pilots, aircraft engineers and technicians than Kenya and Uganda.
By the time the East African Airways, EAA, collapsed along with the original EAC, Tanzania had over 300 pilots, engineers and technicians including the deputy engineer of the EAA, Mr Lyatuu!
It is important to note that during the time, EAA’s chief engineer was an expatriate, a Briton and his deputy was a Tanzanian.
After the EAC’s assets had been equally distributed among former EAC member states by the Swiss diplomat, Professor Victor Umbritch, Tanzania ended up with two Fokker planes and three Twin Otters.
And because the EAA’s biggest hangar located in Nairobi was now out of bound for Tanzania, the country’s five planes were flown to Maputo, in Mozambique where Tanzanian aircraft engineers and technicians worked on the planes like a bees in a beehive.
After they had carried out major maintenance work on the planes and repainted them with Tanzanian colours, the five planes were flown back home where they were received with pomp and pageantry, hence marking the birth of what came to be officially known as Air Tanzania Corporation.
And one of the international media that captured the sensational arrival of the Tanzanian planes was the London based magazine, Africa Business.
In one of its cover stories, the magazine carried a headline that said: What a way to start a new airline.
The magazine went on to predict a bright future for the nascent Tanzanian airline which was run and operated by Tanzanians.
To understand the historic nature of the launch of the ATC, consider the following:
When Tanganyika was getting its independence on December 9th, 1961, the country had less than ten graduates (natives) that included the President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, one medical doctor, Dr Mtawali and one engineer!
However, 16 years later, Tanganyika had grown up not only in physical size and political stature (it now became known as Tanzania following its union with another sovereign state, Zanzibar), but also in terms of development of its human resource!
And instead of talking about ten graduates, it had produced an all Tanzanian crew of pilots, aircraft technicians and engineers for its proud nascent airline!
That was arguably a head-start as far as the establishment of an airline in East Africa was concerned and should have been jealously guarded by subsequent second, third and fourth phases of the country’s leadership.
But as we all know, that has not been done.
In a nutshell, the source of the London based magazine’s prediction lay in the adequate number of pilots, engineers and technicians the Tanzanian nascent airline had.
It would be recalled that this was the time that Tanzanian pilots not only flew ATC planes, but they were also engaged by a number of African countries that included Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Botswana.
The foregoing countries hired Tanzanian pilots, engineers and technicians because they had inadequate number of such crew.
It is important to note that the London based Africa Magazine has, in its history, paid tribute to only two Tanzanian public institutions, the Tanzania Electric Supply Company, TANESCO, in 1974 and the ATC late in 1977.
In 1974 it described Tanesco as the best example of a highly technical institution built from scratch by a developing country.
Later the ATC’s fleet was boosted with the purchase of two brand new aircrafts, Boeing 737 that were christened Serengeti and Kilimanjaro bringing ATC fleet to nine planes!
The two names were given to the two planes used for regional and international flights for one main reason, to publicise Tanzania’s tourist attractions, the then biggest national park in the world, Serengeti (that position has lately been taken by Ruaha National Park) and Africa’s highest roof, Mount Kilimanjaro.
As you read this article today, the ATC is no more having been replaced by ATCL that has two nondescript aircrafts, one grounded at the Julius Nyerere International Airport and the second one holed up somewhere in South Africa!
Looking back at the ATCL’s debacle, the government is squarely to blame for what befell the airline.
It was always too slow in taking to task the airline’s chief executive officers who messed up the airline.
Indeed, the airline had the right crop of trained staff, pilots, engineers and technicians.
However, the problem lay with managers, and in particular, the airline’s CEOs.
It was no wonder that the airline which was run by all kind of people including a judge and banker, basing some of the appointments on know-who rather know-how finally collapsed!
Why some significant people who had served in top managerial positions in the EAA such as Arnold Kileo (Corporation Secretary and Lytuu (deputy engineer) were not appointed as ATC’s CEOs as the airline lasted, to date that remains a conjecture.
But one thing is certain. ATC was failed by the government through appointment of very poor managers as CEOs.
Makwaia spoke about the mushrooming of private airlines, linking them, somewhat, with ATCL’s failure to take to the sky.
He also linked the mushrooming of road transport to the government’s deliberate moves against the establishment of a reliable railroad network.
While he may have touched on the two foregoing separate issues as a possibility, however, a hard glance shows the issues shows that the man has been spot on.
And when all is said and done, it is time Tanzanians realized that they don’t have any other country, other than Tanzania, and it is in this country that they should and must invest on their time and resources for their children and the prosperity!
But that can only be realized if we made a break with our insatiable self-interests that is threatening to to tear the country asunder.
It is now or never!
By Attilio Tagalile
No comments:
Post a Comment