MsemajiUkweli
JF-Expert Member
- Jul 5, 2012
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By David Pilling
In a crowded street in Dar es Salaam, where tailors and scrap-iron merchants vie for space with vegetable hawkers, barber shops and butchers displaying slabs of meat, one incantation is on everybody’s lips: “Magufuli”.
Last October, to virtually everyone’s surprise, John Pombe Magufuli, a less-than-glamorous cabinet member who had done two stints as public works minister, became president of Tanzania.
To get there he beat better-connected rivals from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi “Party of the Revolution”, which in one form or another has ruled the east African nation since independence. Now almost everyone, especially the poor, are putting their faith in a new leader so reputed for getting things done he is known as “the Bulldozer”.
Too often in Africa, exciting new leaders with a radical agenda and supposedly impeccable moral credentials have started off promisingly, only to ossify into ineffective autocrats. That said, Mr Magufuli, 56, embarking on his first five-year term, is creating a buzz of expectation that at last Tanzania has found a leader capable of awakening the “sleeping giant” of east Africa, one with huge, largely unexploited, gas and mineral resources.
“He walks the talk,” says Samuel Wangwe, principal research associate at the Economic and Social Research Foundation in Dar es Salaam. “When he says something, he follows through. He’s not a liar.”
The presidency commands huge constitutional power — and Mr Magufuli has not been afraid to use it. He has waltzed into government offices and fired people on the spot. He is even rumoured, like a Chinese emperor, to travel in disguise in order to sniff out malfeasance. He pressed ahead with a highly flawed electoral process in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island, which deprived the Zanzibari opposition of what looked like victory. Nor has he been shy of using sweeping cyber crime legislation to silence critics. This month, a court sentenced a man to three years in jail for insulting the president on Facebook.
Mr Magufuli, the son of a peasant farmer, and a chemical engineer by profession, indicated what kind of leader he would be from the get-go. He scrapped normally lavish independence day celebrations and, borrowing a stunt from Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, took to the streets with a broom, declaring he would spend the money saved on sanitation.
He has clamped down on foreign travel for officials, personally vetting all trips. His predecessor, Jakaya Kikwete, was so fond of foreign tours he was christened Vasco da Gama, after the Portuguese explorer.
In his first budget, presented this month, he pledged 40 per cent of spending to development and infrastructure, up from 25 per cent. He will pay for his pro-poor agenda, he says, by cutting current expenditure, purging the government of extravagance — even the serving of tea and coffee in offices has been banned — and squeezing more revenue from private companies and high-flying elites.
“All over the world, people speak about Magufuli,” says Othman Gendaiki, 76, lowering himself stiffly on to a stone step by the side of an open sewer in Msasani, a Dar es Salaam neighbourhood. “To break the chains of poverty. That’s what he’s trying to do.”
Many Tanzanians have been left out of an economic boom that has seen the economy, according to official statistics, grow at an average of 7 per cent for 15 years. That is particularly true of the countryside, where more than two-thirds of Tanzanians live, many in severe poverty. Farming output has grown only 3 or 4 per cent a year, barely enough to keep up with a blistering birth rate, which could see a population of 55m, the fourth-largest in sub-Saharan Africa, double within 30 years.
Mr Magufuli’s supporters argue that he must first use his authority to take on a system corroded by corruption and complacency before he can rebuild institutions. But even advocates worry about his tendencies to run government by fiat and to take snap decisions without, they say, thinking through the consequences.
A crackdown on illicit sugar imports has led to shortages. Last week, his government demanded that foreign-owned telecoms companies list on the local stock exchange within six months. One lawyer accused the president of hypocrisy, saying he talked about fighting corruption while encouraging the police to steal the tyres off illegally parked vehicles.
Naturally, Mr Magufuli has made enemies. In the State House, as a precaution, he is said to eat only food prepared by his wife.
“People believe sincerely that there’s a new sheriff in town,” says Salim Ahmed Salim, a former prime minister.
Back in Msasani, there are few such reservations. “He’s like a soldier,” says Paulo Shiwala, 40, a hospital technician. “When you are a soldier you have to use your tone of voice, not smiling. When you are smiling, people are stealing.”
He is hopeful the new president will get the economy working for the poor and wants to set his wife up in business. “If God wishes, I can get a café for her,” he says. “Maybe if Magufuli can produce a miracle, then we can get it.”
Source: Financial Times
David Pilling is the Africa editor of the Financial Times. He was previously Asia editor and also formerly Tokyo Bureau Chief for the FT from January 2002 to August 2008.
In a crowded street in Dar es Salaam, where tailors and scrap-iron merchants vie for space with vegetable hawkers, barber shops and butchers displaying slabs of meat, one incantation is on everybody’s lips: “Magufuli”.
Last October, to virtually everyone’s surprise, John Pombe Magufuli, a less-than-glamorous cabinet member who had done two stints as public works minister, became president of Tanzania.
To get there he beat better-connected rivals from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi “Party of the Revolution”, which in one form or another has ruled the east African nation since independence. Now almost everyone, especially the poor, are putting their faith in a new leader so reputed for getting things done he is known as “the Bulldozer”.
Too often in Africa, exciting new leaders with a radical agenda and supposedly impeccable moral credentials have started off promisingly, only to ossify into ineffective autocrats. That said, Mr Magufuli, 56, embarking on his first five-year term, is creating a buzz of expectation that at last Tanzania has found a leader capable of awakening the “sleeping giant” of east Africa, one with huge, largely unexploited, gas and mineral resources.
“He walks the talk,” says Samuel Wangwe, principal research associate at the Economic and Social Research Foundation in Dar es Salaam. “When he says something, he follows through. He’s not a liar.”
The presidency commands huge constitutional power — and Mr Magufuli has not been afraid to use it. He has waltzed into government offices and fired people on the spot. He is even rumoured, like a Chinese emperor, to travel in disguise in order to sniff out malfeasance. He pressed ahead with a highly flawed electoral process in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island, which deprived the Zanzibari opposition of what looked like victory. Nor has he been shy of using sweeping cyber crime legislation to silence critics. This month, a court sentenced a man to three years in jail for insulting the president on Facebook.
Mr Magufuli, the son of a peasant farmer, and a chemical engineer by profession, indicated what kind of leader he would be from the get-go. He scrapped normally lavish independence day celebrations and, borrowing a stunt from Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, took to the streets with a broom, declaring he would spend the money saved on sanitation.
He has clamped down on foreign travel for officials, personally vetting all trips. His predecessor, Jakaya Kikwete, was so fond of foreign tours he was christened Vasco da Gama, after the Portuguese explorer.
In his first budget, presented this month, he pledged 40 per cent of spending to development and infrastructure, up from 25 per cent. He will pay for his pro-poor agenda, he says, by cutting current expenditure, purging the government of extravagance — even the serving of tea and coffee in offices has been banned — and squeezing more revenue from private companies and high-flying elites.
“All over the world, people speak about Magufuli,” says Othman Gendaiki, 76, lowering himself stiffly on to a stone step by the side of an open sewer in Msasani, a Dar es Salaam neighbourhood. “To break the chains of poverty. That’s what he’s trying to do.”
Many Tanzanians have been left out of an economic boom that has seen the economy, according to official statistics, grow at an average of 7 per cent for 15 years. That is particularly true of the countryside, where more than two-thirds of Tanzanians live, many in severe poverty. Farming output has grown only 3 or 4 per cent a year, barely enough to keep up with a blistering birth rate, which could see a population of 55m, the fourth-largest in sub-Saharan Africa, double within 30 years.
Mr Magufuli’s supporters argue that he must first use his authority to take on a system corroded by corruption and complacency before he can rebuild institutions. But even advocates worry about his tendencies to run government by fiat and to take snap decisions without, they say, thinking through the consequences.
A crackdown on illicit sugar imports has led to shortages. Last week, his government demanded that foreign-owned telecoms companies list on the local stock exchange within six months. One lawyer accused the president of hypocrisy, saying he talked about fighting corruption while encouraging the police to steal the tyres off illegally parked vehicles.
Naturally, Mr Magufuli has made enemies. In the State House, as a precaution, he is said to eat only food prepared by his wife.
“People believe sincerely that there’s a new sheriff in town,” says Salim Ahmed Salim, a former prime minister.
Back in Msasani, there are few such reservations. “He’s like a soldier,” says Paulo Shiwala, 40, a hospital technician. “When you are a soldier you have to use your tone of voice, not smiling. When you are smiling, people are stealing.”
He is hopeful the new president will get the economy working for the poor and wants to set his wife up in business. “If God wishes, I can get a café for her,” he says. “Maybe if Magufuli can produce a miracle, then we can get it.”
Source: Financial Times
David Pilling is the Africa editor of the Financial Times. He was previously Asia editor and also formerly Tokyo Bureau Chief for the FT from January 2002 to August 2008.
