"A Time of Struggle": Exogenous Shocks,Structural Transformation and Crisis in Tanzania

Address to the CCM (Revolutionary Party) Congress on 25 July 1980.

Address to the National Assembly on 22 July 1980.

For more detailed presentations see J.K. Nyerere , The Arusha Declaration: 10 Years After (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1977), and B. U. Mwansasu and C. Pratt (eds.), Towards Socialism in Tanzania (Toronto: University of Toronto Press/Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1979), especially the chapters by Mwansasu and Pratt, as well as those by R. H. Green, J. Loxely, J. Barker and B. U. Mwansasu.

For a fuller analysis see R.H. Green , D. Rwegasira and B. van Arkadie , Economic Shocks and National Policy Making: Tanzania in the 1970s (The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, 1980).

Much of the debate is presented in B, U. Mwansasu and C. Pratt , op. cit., especially in Pratt's concluding chapter; in R. H. Green , D. Rwegasira and B. van Arkadie , op. cit, ; in J. K. Nyerere , op cit.; and in the chapters by M. A. Bienefeld , A. Coulson and R. H. Green in M. Fransman (ed.), Industrialisation in Africa (London: Heinemann, 1981).

For a fuller exposition see R.H. Green , "A Chance to Make Sense out of Economic Chaos", Times Higher Education Supplement , 23 May 1980, and "Gale Warnings: Fragments of Charts and Guides for Navigators", Development Dialogue , 1980.

Address to National Assembly, op. cit.

In the first place TANU was always at least vaguely committed to socialism. In the second, there was never any substantial effort to create or assist a local bourgeoisie. Perhaps equally critical, until the mid-1960s, neither the personnel, institutional or consciousness base existed for a radical break with the past.

See J. K. Nyerere, op. cit.; and B. U. Mwansasu and C. Pratt, op. cit.

Ibid.

The problem is paradoxical. Both growth and structural change increase the need for external resources, knowledge and personnel in the short-term while reducing them in the long-term. The Tanzania of 1961 or 1966 could by now be fully staffed and financed domestically - but to have continued that neo-colonia ! pattern would have meant no commitment to, or attainment of, self-reliance.

For example, in 1977 the main public sector manufacturing groups consolidated pre-tax surplus on net assets was virtually 30 per cent, while the main food procurement-storage-sale company lost perhaps £20 million.

J. K. Nyerere, op. cit.

Address to the CCM (Revolutionary Party) Congress, op. cit.

For more detailed coverage of the IMF question see R.H. Green , "Tanzania and the IMF: Round Five", in John Arnold (ed.), Bulletin of Tanzanian Affairs (Southampton : British Tanzania Society, Dept. of Adult Education, University of Southampton, December, 1980). The result is perhaps a truce rather than an actual meeting of the minds, as suggested by Tanzania's participation in the "Arusha Initiative", Development Dialogue, 1980-82, and by Minister Jamal's stinging Chairman's Address to the Governors of the Fund and Bank at the 1980 Annual Meeting (Washington: World Bank, 1980, mimeographed). Nonetheless, it provides Leeway for arrears reduction, repayment of the maturing IMF drawings and a modest contingency fund for additional imports.

In the special case of Zanzibar virtually all MPs were rejected while Vice-President Jumbe was overwhelmingly elected Zanzibar President with a mandate to reform its unrepresentative, conservative Revolutionary Council. This was the first contested election in Zanzibar since Independence and suggested both great disenchantment with many old guard office bearers and relative enthusiasm for increasing Ndugu Jumbe's power to make changes.

This priority is referred to by President Nyerere in his speeches again and again. See for example, Address to the CCM, op. cit., and Address to the National Assembly, op. cit. The theme was rarely presented in previous years.

Returned - not emerged - President Nyerere has, over the years, regularly stressed the need for efficiency and organisation if scarce resources were to be used to achieve national goals. Indeed, 1977-79 was the exception, not the rule, because of the Amin war.

In Fall 1980 discussion at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.

International solidarity is not cited simply because Tanzania's diligence in acquiring assistance on its own terms cannot be pressed much further. Nor would any practicable change increase both resource availability and be consistent with a transition to self-reliance and socialism.

Address to the National Assembly, op. cit.

For a more detailed discussion see M.A. Bienefeld , "Evaluating Tanzanian Industrial Development Between 1961 and 1978", and R.H. Green , "Industrialisation and Tanzania: Some Notes on Strategies, Tactics, Problems and Results", in M. Fransman , op. cit.

There is no correlation in Tanzania between effective worker participation and bad results, nor between authoritarian management and good results. On the whole the evidence points fairly firmly in the reverse direction. Certainly this is so in the case of textiles where more detailed evidence is available on a comparable basis.

Address to National Assembly, op. cit.

For a fuller exposition see Southern Africa Toward Economic Liberation (London: SACD, 1980); Southern Africa Development Co-ordination: Toward Economic Liberation (London: Collings, 1981); and R.H. Green , "Constellation, Association or Liberation: the Struggle for Southern African Development Co-ordination", in ACR 1979-80 (London: African, 1980).