The chairman of the parliamentary infrastructure committee, Mr Peter Serukumba two weeks ago raised the red flag against the ministry for transport over its 2011/12 budget.
He warned that his committee would block the ministry’s budget unless core issues such as railways, ports and the revival of Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) are addressed in the budget.
The parliamentary committee’s warning comes four weeks after President Jakaya Kikwete expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of his ministers and senior civil servants when he was closing the orientation seminar in Dodoma.
He directed his ministers and top flight government officials to go to the people learn their problems and seek ways of solving such problems as soon as possible.
And talking about people’s problems, nothing has affected the down trodden man in this country in the realm of transport more than the TRL’s failure to provide cheap and reliable train services.
Therefore one would have expected those at the helm of the ministry of transport to have addressed the two-pronged problems of the TRL, namely, dilapidated infrastructure on one hand and engines, coaches and wagons on the other in the forthcoming transport ministry’s budget.
Unfortunately that has not been done! The ministry has not only ignored the TRL and its infrastructure, but also the country’s ports and the ATCL.
Given the ministry of transport’s lack of seriousness, as clearly exhibited by its handling of the budget, it is not difficult to understand the President Kikwete’s frustrations.
One does not need to be in the ministry of transport in order to understand the importance of reliable railroad network in Tanzania for servicing land-locked countries such as the Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Listening to top-flight officials in the ministry of transport talk about their future plans in railroads, one gets the impression of men intent on re-inventing the wheel when good practice toward that end exist within the ministry and the country at large!
It is not a secret that many land-locked countries that heavily depend on Tanzania both for their imports and exports, have time and again complained over Tanzania’s failure to serve them to the letter.
And most of them have been complaining about central railway line’s lack of reliability both in terms of the TRL’s train services and infrastructure which was first laid by the German in 1900.
Six months hardly go by without countries like Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda complaining to Tanzania, during their leaders’ visits to Dar es Salaam port, about poor transport services and thefts of their goods at the port.
And yet the ministry that is supposed to solve such problems has the audacity to come up with a budget that ignores the very issues which are central to the development of the country’s economy!
The fourth phase Kikwete’s administration is already midway in its first year since it was re-elected in October last year, meaning that it is presently left with only four years.
The third phase government of Ben Mkapa’s administration will for a long time to come be remembered for putting the economy back on its rails, cutting down inflation to one digit, construction of tarmac roads across the country and construction of the Olympic size stadium in Dar es Salaam.
What legacy does the fourth phase administration want to leave behind if it does not work now, through its transport ministry, on economic engines of its economy-infrastructure?
It is indisputable that Tanzania’s tourist attractions are second to none in the world.
Yet such tourist attractions will continue to remain meaningless as long as Tanzania does not have a vibrant airline in the form of the ATCL for promoting, among other things, the tourist industry.
A few days ago, India’s Prime Minister, Mohan Sigh concluded a three-day official visit to Tanzania.
And we all remember how the Indian leader arrived and finally left Tanzania, aboard Air India, which has since the country’s birth in 1947 been advertising the sub-continent the world over.
Whenever the Indian leader flies the world over for official visits, he does so not through some expensive gulfstream jet or international airliner, but rather through Air India.
Successive Indian leaders have been using Air India both for business and diplomatic purposes, namely enhancement of the country’s economic wellbeing.
It is time the government emulated India and other countries example by getting ATCL back in the air.
Of course, putting ATCL back in air is going to be very expensive, but that is what we will all have to bear for failure to put the airline in the right footing.
In fact, the sooner we realize that public institutions can only be run by qualified and competent people as opposed to friends and in-laws, the better!
By Attilio Tagalile
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