vision 2020+
Member
- Jan 31, 2012
- 91
- 18
When I was young I had a dream to become the President of my nation. As I write this article here in Kenya today, June 19[SUP]th[/SUP] 2014 at Safari Park Hotel, there is a difference between what I used to dream and who I am today for I have become a businessman instead with international and local focus as well.
Mr. President, congratulations for being elected for the second term 2010-2015. You are a very busy man because you are responsible for everyone in the nation of more than 44 million people. Since you took over Office you have been very busy with a number of good projects here in Tanzania as well as abroad. You have initiated projects such as Rapid Bus Service, Kilimo Kwanza, Infrastructure Development, Kigamboni Satellite City and many others.
Mr President, you are doing a very good job but you need to jump one more stage which is the basic foundation of all what you want to achieve. This is the HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT! All what is being implemented will vanish soon if we don't have high quality human capital because high quality human resource is one that makes all what you want possible. For example, you can plant trees all over country but if you have poor human capital they will cut down all the trees; you can build better roads but if you have poor human capital they will destroy all road pavements, urinate alongside the roads and use the roadside as a garbage disposal site.
You can put a lot of effort to attract investors to come to Tanzania but they cannot employ local people and instead import skilled labour from abroad. Currently more than 95% of the CEO's of the biggest corporations in Tanzania are foreigners! It is very difficult for local emerging businessmen to control their own economy because a foreign CEOs will definitely make decisions in favour of their own countries. At the end of the day, all tenders and projects go to foreigners and producing local millionaires will slow down due to the fact that decision makers and people who hold important data and information about the future of Tanzania are not locals.
Mr President, one of the famous music groups called Coldplay released their new song recently called A Sky Full of Stars - please watch it here:
Why have I mentioned this song? Because everyone is a star, all 7 billion people in the world are stars but many of them need their leaders to validate their potential. There are some nations that invest a lot more on their people and hence succeed to unleash their people's potentials and became developed nations, and others simply don't invest enough in their people.
According to some research, Mr President, the fastest growing economies during 2007-2013:
- Ethiopia Grow by 108% and they have 2700 $ millionaires
- Angola grow by 68% and they have 6400 $ millionaires.
- Tanzania grow by 51% and we have 5600 $ millionaires
- Ghana grow by 50% and they have 2400 $ millionaires
- Nigeria grow by 44% and they have 15700 $ millionaires
- Kenya grow by 24% and they have 8300 $ millionaires
- USA has 8.2 million millionaires
Mr. President, there is more money than people in this world; for example, the richest man in Africa is worth $20 billion and world population is 7 billion people. If Mr Aliko Dangote decides to give all of his money to everyone in this world everyone will receive more than $3 dollars, yet people think money is scarce. Mr Dangote is only one billionaire; as you undoubtedly know there are thousands of billionaires in the world.
Experts say if Tanzania is to follow the example of successful emerging countries, it will need to improve the policy aspects in the areas of human development (Tanzania is currently ranked 152nd out of 182 countries on the HDI index); its business environment (134th out of 185 countries); and government effectiveness (135th out of 212 countries). For the last two indicators, Tanzania's ranking has deteriorated over recent years.
Tanzania's rank in the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Human Development Index has improved since 1995, but its progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been uneven. The country is expected to reach only three out of seven MDGs by 2015. Tanzania is on track to meet the MDGs related to combating HIV/AIDS and reducing infant and under-five mortality but is lagging in primary school completion, maternal health, poverty eradication, malnutrition, and environmental sustainability.
Tanzania needs competitive labour-intensive sectors to absorb the growing youthful labor force, augmenting by approximately 800,000 every year.The current small market share of new, labour-absorbing export-oriented industries, together with inadequate human capital development (skill shortage), creates a medium-term risk of high youth unemployment. Growth in employment has so far largely come from domestically-oriented industries with the exception of tourism. There is a need to promote competitiveness gains in labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing and services.
According to a World Bank/KPMG survey in November 2013, 55% of the business managers of the top 100 mid-sized companies in Tanzania feel that the economy is performing better in 2013 than in 2012, while 26% feel it is the same, whilst 21% said that it is now worse than in 2012.
Mr President, good written and spoken English is one of the major competitive advantages for a number of African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. In Tanzania, there is a serious lack of people with good spoken and written English, which makes our human capital seem incompetent among investors. We as a nation need to invest more in this area among our people and hence instil more confidence in them.
One of the regional magazines indicated that about two years ago, the budget for human capital investment in Tanzania was a very disappointing TSH 5 billion; in contrast, Kenya invested more than Tsh 400 billion in human capital investment during the same time. Please note that I am not referring to investment in formal education – primary, secondary or tertiary level education – but rather to investment vocational training, professional training, soft skills development, student and professional exchange programmes and related activities. It is in these areas of human capital development that we as a nation are seriously lagging behind.
Currently digital economies add more than 6% to sub-Saharan nation GDP, and nations like Nigeria benefit much on digital economies because they already have well prepared human capital to compete in the world. In Tanzania we have lots of IT graduates who have lots of ideas but yet they don't know how to formalize them and start any serious business.
Mr President, I have plenty of information and ideas to share, many of which cannot be adequately elaborated in a letter as short as this. It will be my distinct pleasure to one day have coffee with you at the statehouse and talk in greater length and greater depth.
Yours sincerely,
Deogratius Kilawe
C.E.O
Excel Management and Outsourcing (T) Limited
Last edited by a moderator: