Thought We Had Hit Bottom But We Haven’t

[Augustine Moshi]

Words, I now can confirm, do not amount to much. We used to proudly proclaim that we would run while they walked. Words, my friends, words.

We then said binadamu wote ni ndugu zangu na Afrika ni moja. Ndugu zako how when you are regularly giving yourself a per diem of $200 while you attend meetings in the same compound as your office, and the rest of us have nothing? Words, man, words!

So, it is ari mpya, kasi mpya, nguvu mpya? When will that start, as it certainly hasn’t? I can see some kasi mpya around, but it seems to be limited to bankrupting us. The current account deficit has widened to an alarming rate of 10% per annum. So what do you do about that? You simply order more shangingis? I was going to say shame on you, but I remembered that you have no shame left.

I wish we didn’t have MKUKUTA. It seems to be a devise for getting yourselves more per diem only. Is MKUKUTA supposed to have something to do with us? Perhaps it does, for our life expectancy has suddenly dropped to 49 years! Is that thanks to MKUKUTA or not?

We used to live to be 55 years. That was some 35 years ago, before the party was born. As the party lives, our years seem to be gobbled up ferociously. Now, thanks to the party, we are a 48 year old nation whose people live only 49 years.

I would be very sad if I did not have hope. And I don’t just mean hope in the resurrection. I hope that the party will disappear from the corridors of power one of these fine days, and then, and only then, we the people will liver longer and longer.

Like I said, the average life expectancy in Tanzania is now just 49 years. Now hear this: our constitution requires that a president be at least 50 years old. It means that on average, we are not eligible to be president. If that is not ridiculous then I don’t know what is!

So, what am I saying? I am saying that we should have a constitutional conference to take in the fact that we live 49 years only and therefore we should not require our presidents to be at leat 50!

 

[Kevo]

Thats a good one comrade.
Sounds poetic,educative and very rich!
The Party,the People and the Dying Nation!

 

[Bluray]

Mwalimu,

As that 1st century Roman poet used to say, give them bread and circuses, then you can rule them forever.The sad thing is we only get circuses in the form of those slogans -poor ones at that- and no bread.

I saw the piece about the 10% ($2.55 billion) current account deficit in Friday's Financial Times I believe, the numbers are vastly disappointing. This is a case of one step forward two steps backwards. Gold exports are down 18%, imports of goods and services jumped 6 percent to $7.6 billion in the one year period ending June 09, as if by a miracle, goods and services exports rose by 5.2 percent to $4.45 billion compared with the year ended June 2008, I have to ask myself where is this unexpected piece of good news in the midst of chaos coming from.


After accepting the seemingly inevitable Kikwete presidency in 05, the only consolation was I hoped against hope that at least we had an economist for president, and unlike his wordsmith predecessor, perhaps given the full control he would change the economy for the better due to his economic perspective.He turned out to be an intellectually diminutive, overly introverted and like his kaleidoscopically claustrophobic, inherently incoherent.

Kikwete is a man who knew to wait his turn for the presidency, but little else. He knows of neither vision nor priority, he has neither the merit nor the determination.And to make matters worse, our country has no grassroots network to take them to task. This is why I am watching the retarded but necessary evolution of the opposition in TZ with much interest, I was going to say I guess half a bread is better than nothing, but coming full cycle back to Juvenal, we are getting mediocre circuses and no bread at all!.

 

[Hukumuzuku]

Like I said, the average life expectancy in Tanzania is now just 49 years. Now hear this: our constitution requires that a president be at least 50 years old. It means that on average, we are not eligible to be president. If that is not ridiculous then I don't know what is!

So, what am I saying? I am saying that we should have a constitutional conference to take in the fact that we live 49 years only and therefore we should not require our presidents to be at leat 50!

There's nothing wrong if the age requirement for a presidential appears to be more or less above the average life expectancy of the country's population. If anything, living to be 50 years and older in Tanzania should ideally indicate that one is probably of "above average" physical health and sure enough every sensible individual would in the least expect a candidate for the country's highest office to be of perfectly sound physical health.

More to the point though: age requirement for a presidential candidate happens to a real phenomenon in space and time, while average life expectancy in any given country is not only a very weak descriptive statistical measure, but is also intrinsically an imaginary quantity and may therefore lack any real meaningful significance in everyday life. Therefore your observation apparently builds on faulty logic, as these two quantities aren't comparable.

 

[Interested Observer]

Professor, you forgot the "Kikwete" stimulus package - how did it endup? I was thinking it wud stimulate this falling economy!!!

 

[Mag3]

You dont hit bottom when you are in a bottomless pit, you keep on going down, down, down............ !

• The sad part is that the misinformed majority appears to be enjoying the ride and have no idea we are in a bottomless pit !
• The sadder part is that is that our GPS is malfunctioning big time and our guide (Kikwete) has no idea where we are heading!
• The saddest part however is our inability to realize that unless we do something, we are doomed - it is indeed sad !

 

[Nyani Ngabu]

You dont hit bottom when you are in a bottomless pit, you keep on going down, down, down............ !

• The sad part is that the misinformed majority appears to be enjoying the ride and have no idea we are in a bottomless pit !
• The sadder part is that is that our GPS is malfunctioning big time and our guide (Kikwete) has no idea where we are heading!
• The saddest part however is our inability to realize that unless we do something, we are doomed - it is indeed sad !

Who did you vote for president in '05? If I may ask...

 

[Sungi]

Like I said, the average life expectancy in Tanzania is now just 49 years. Now hear this: our constitution requires that a president be at least 50 years old. It means that on average, we are not eligible to be president. If that is not ridiculous then I don’t know what is!

So, what am I saying? I am saying that we should have a constitutional conference to take in the fact that we live 49 years only and therefore we should not require our presidents to be at leat 50!

Umepata wapi hizi habari ... ebu tusomeni Katiba kabla ya kuzungumza mambo ambayo si ya kweli. Ibara ya 39 ya Katiba ya Jamuhuri wa Muungano wa Tanzania, 1977 ina orodhesha sifa za mtu kwa Rais:

39​

​

.-(1) Mtu hatastahili kuchaguliwa kushika kiti cha Rais wa
Jamhuri ya Muungano isipokuwa tu kama-
(a) ni raia wa kuzaliwa wa Jamhuri ya Muungano kwa
mujibu wa Sheria ya Uraia.
(b) ametimiza umri wa miaka arobaini;
(c) ni mwanachama, na mgombea aliyependekezwa na
chama cha siasa;
(d) anazo sifa za kumwezesha kuwa Mbunge au Mjumbe
wa Baraza la Wawakilishi,
(e) katika kipindi cha miaka mitano kabla ya tarehe ya
Uchaguzi Mkuu hajawahi kutiwa hatiani katika
Mahakama yoyote kwa kosa lolote la kukwepa kulipa​

kodi yoyote ya Serikali.

 

[Augustine Moshi]

Thank you Sungi for pointing out that I haven’t read the Constitution. I did not know that I hadn’t. Now, where did I get those fifty years from? Was it just something that was used against JK in 1995?

Bluray says that Kikwete is an Economist. Since when? He might have studied Economics when he was doing his first (and only) degree, but is that enough to make him an Economist? It is to be hoped that no Economists here will be sufficiently offended to sue you for defaming their discipline.

Njabu Da Dude declares that there is nothing wrong with setting the presidential age above the national life expectancy! But that would allow people who are statistically dead to rule us!

I agree with Interested Observer that I forgot JK’s stimulus package. Perhaps it’s because I have not been stimulated at all. Has anyone, JK included, felt the stimulus? Someone ought to tell our Mkuu that there is more to stimulus than a set of words.

Yeah, we live 49 years on average. And it’s on a downward trend. If we don’t make some real changes next year, then we might reach a stage whereby our national life expectancy is in the teens. We will then be a nation of children. I take that back. We won’t realy have children because we will, on the average, die before we can procreate.

So, Sungi, let’s have a people’s meeting. We might not find the constitution worth talking about, but we have to discus what to do about the fact that we are an endangered species.

 

[Mkandara]

Like I said, the average life expectancy in Tanzania is now just 49 years. Now hear this: our constitution requires that a president be at least 50 years old. It means that on average, we are not eligible to be president. If that is not ridiculous then I don’t know what is!

Mhnnnnnnnnn!....That's a good one!

 

[Augustine Moshi]

Mhnnnnnnnnn!....That's a good one!

Actually Mkandara that is not nice at all. Sungi has proved that it is entirely possible to be the boss of Ikulu at age 40. Trouble is, that is just in theory. In practice you cannot be there until you are at least half a century old. You also need to have been a mwenzetu for longer than you could remember.

So, it is better to talk only about development. What is left of it, that is.

Mzee Malecela was PM once. That was a while ago, so many may have forgotten. He observed then that we had hit bottom, and going up was the only possibility left. It looked like he was right for a while.

Who would have thought that a certain JK would eventually come along, treble inflation and widen our deficits? And he is not done. Not by a long shot. He intends to get a second term one way or the other. He will then quadruple what he has already trebled.

With JK and CCM, we haven’t hit the bottom. With this kind of combination, there is no limit to our underdevelopment. There is no bottom.

I am just now reminded of the funniest words that have been uttered lately. They are Edward Lowas’s sasa tunapaa assessment. We could be taking off alright, but to extinction perhaps. Why? Because we only live 49 years, and that is decreasing by the day!

 

[Mkandara]

Actually Mkandara that is not nice at all. Sungi has proved that it is entirely possible to be the boss of Ikulu at age 40. Trouble is, that is just in theory. In practice you cannot be there until you are at least half a century old. You also need to have been a mwenzetu for longer than you could remember.

So, it is better to talk only about development. What is left of it, that is.

Mzee Malecela was PM once. That was a while ago, so many may have forgotten. He observed then that we had hit bottom, and going up was the only possibility left. It looked like he was right for a while.

Who would have thought that a certain JK would eventually come along, treble inflation and widen our deficits? And he is not done. Not by a long shot. He intends to get a second term one way or the other. He will then quadruple what he has already trebled.

With JK and CCM, we haven't hit the bottom. With this kind of combination, there is no limit to our underdevelopment. There is no bottom.

I am just now reminded of the funniest words that have been uttered lately. They are Edward Lowas's sasa tunapaa assessment. We could be taking off alright, but to extinction perhaps. Why? Because we only live 49 years, and that is decreasing by the day!

Well if Zimbabwe didn't hit the bottom, where is the bottom!..Now I hear they have taken off.. from where?.. and trust me, if their economy will improve by 20% a year it would be a record to be reckoned with!.. praising Mugabe for we have forgotten the past - I mean the Bottom to be precise.
NDIVYO TULIVYO, mwalimu.....

 

[Augustine Moshi]

Ukiwa na shilingi moja, kisha ukapata ya pili, basi umeendelea kwa kasi ya 100%

Hiyo 20% ya Zimbabwe si kitu kikubwa. 20% of nothing is nothing!

 

[Augustine Moshi]

“Power problems in Tanzania will soon be history!” So declared JK during one of his frequent re-entries from the USA (a place where power problems are in fact history). Well, in truth we are currently experiencing history breaking power problems, and in that way, our power problems are historic.

Mark my words: we will continue to have bad power problems for as long as the real problem (CCM) is in power.

Not to be outdone by her boss, Shamsa Mwangunga has lately declared that the problem of forced eviction of Maasai Tribesmen in Loliondo “will soon be history”. It is a historic problem already. Never before has a nation burnt houses and generally unleashed mayhem on its citizens so as to free the land for the hunting pleasure of some former slave masters!

We will continue to have historically bad problems until the CCM government becomes history.