New
Year Message to the Nation by the President of the United
Republic of Tanzania, His Excellency Benjamin William Mkapa,
Dar Es Salaam, December 31, 2000
Fellow Citizens,
To-day we join
the rest of the world in bidding farewell to the year 2000,
and in welcoming the new year, 2001.
I ask everyone,
in accordance with his or her faith, to thank Almighty God
for bringing us safely to this day, and to pray that He should
continue to protect, guide and be merciful to us in the new
year; so that our nation should nurture and preserve its attributes
of peace, stability, unity, love and solidarity.
Not everyone reached
this day. Some of our fellow citizens-people close to us-passed
away in the ending year. We should pray to Almighty God that
their souls rest in eternal peace.
Fellow Citizens,
The 2000 General
Elections were one of the most important national events of
the ending year. Once again I thank you all for the strong
confidence you have shown in Chama Cha Mapinduzi. You have
given us an unquestionable mandate to govern. I am especially
inspired by the 71.7% vote you gave me. I am, however, mindful
of what the Holy Books say, that to whom much is given, from
him also much will be required. I know, therefore, that you
look to me to meet your hopes - hopes for better governance,
hopes for continued peace and stability, and hopes for development.
I should like, therefore, to repeat my solemn pledge to do
all in my power to serve you with diligence and integrity,
so that working together with all of you, we can achieve those
hopes and goals we all cherish and seek to realise.
Fellow Citizens,
The General Elections
were the first since the death of the Father of the Nation,
Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere. They were, as such, a formidable
test on whether we could maintain national unity in the political
diversity of a multi- party political dispensation; we were
tested on whether we could hold different political views
and yet remain brothers and sisters in one nation; we were
tested as to whether we could each worship according to our
different faiths and spiritual inclinations without undermining
our brotherhood, our unity, our love, and our national solidarity.
I am pleased,
and every patriotic Tanzanian has reason to be pleased, that
we have passed the test of being good students of Mwalimu
Nyerere. The foundations of nationhood and unity that he built
withstood and survived the partisan pressures of the General
Elections. The political maturity of our people shone bright.
We are grateful to Mwalimu for laying such a strong national
foundation, and I thank you all for abiding by them.
My gratitude to
you is both earnest and significant. For I do know for a fact
that some politicians tried to plant the seeds of discord
among you on the grounds of religion, tribe, region and gender.
But with your votes you rebuked them, refusing to be drawn
into voting on the basis of such divisive considerations.
If one lesson
has come out of the last General Elections, it is for all
politicians to realise and accept that the vast majority of
Tanzanians are not ready to embrace divisive politics. I urge
you, my Fellow Citizens, to remain firm and vigilant. Those
who wanted to divide and weaken us failed in the year 2000.
But I know they will try again. We must reject them and their
overtures again and again and again!!
Tanzania must
remain an example of unity, solidarity and a strong sense
of nationhood. We have to ensure that the seeds of discord
do not germinate in this country. And should they sprout,
we must uproot them promptly. For they are the greatest threat
to our unity, to our nationhood, to our inheritance and to
our development. Examples abound of countries that allowed
seeds of discord to grow; and we all know what befell them.
We should be making a monumental error should we follow in
their steps. We should, instead, vow to do our level best
to remain one of the lights that can help to chase away the
darkness of conflisct and civil war that hangs over Africa
and shames our continent on the international plane.
My Fellow Citizens,
Let me also emphasise
that the General Elections are over. Democratic and good governance
provides for freedom of political choice, expressed by voting.
But democratic and good governance also requires everyone
to accept the people's verdict. We cannot develop if we allow
ourselves to be totally consumed by the passion of the game
of politics, from one election to another. Endless politicking,
and demands to hold rally after rally, demonstration after
demonstration, will leave us with little time to address the
fundamental and burning issues of development. Such demands
are not liberating- not politically and certainly not economically.
Some politicians
may consider such obsession with politics as the best way
to build or expand their personal political capital; but it
obviously cannot be in pursuit of the genuine interests of
the majority of the people, and of our nation. We must
now espouse some measure of political discipline as a nation,
discipline that recognises that there is a time foreverything,
and an end to everything. A Party that wins an election
needs time, space and peace to focus on providing national
leadership, and do what the people voted it to power to do,
as well as implement its Election Manifesto. We in Government
intend to focus on such basic issues in the new year, thereby
honouring the people's verdict and fulfilling their aspirations
to the best of our abilities.
Fellow Citizens,
Another important
development during the year 2000 was the Decision Point reached
by the Multilateral Financial Institutions to give us substantial
debt relief. We will direct our energies to fulfilling all
conditions precedent to reaching the Completion Point in the
course of 2001. That decision to grant us debt relief illustrates
international confidence in, and satisfaction with, the policy
and implementation of structural and economic reforms we undertook
in the last 5 years. The painful reforms are beginning to
bear fruit; and I should like to thank you all for standing
by us, with hope and patience.
You and I, together
with Government, have now to face the challenge of spreading
widely the fruits of those reforms. This is the biggest and
most urgent task of the new year. The reforms will not in
themselves create miracles in our individual, community or
national life. Good policies and structures only create an
enabling environment for our people, and the nation, to self-develop.
Such policies and structures must be taken advantage of, by
all of us, as tools and as an enabling environment for development.
If we do not do so, no amount of good policies, structures
and reforms will lift us from our individual, community or
national poverty.
So as we begin
the new year, I ask you all, as individuals, as households,
as communities and as a nation, that everyone should use the
present improved environment to work harder, to show greater
initiative, and to be more innovative, so that day after day,
year after year, we should be able to move forward, and improve
our personal lives, improve the welfare of our communities,
and enhance national development.
Towards that end,
we must work together, and share responsibilities. The Central
Government and Local Governments must now accept the responsibility
to empower each citizen and community to plan and execute
with diligence, greater effort and new knowledge, various
efforts to augment their incomes, and empower them to solve
their own problems. Development can only be brought about
by the people themselves- individually, or in groups and in
comunities - operating in a conucive environment and Government
sponsored empowerment. To what extent Government can contribute
to augment the people's development efforts will, in turn,
depend on the empowerment of the Government by the people
through the revenues due to it.
I repeat. It is
the efforts, knowledge and skills of each individual, each
household and each community, in an enabling environment created
by Government, that are the real motive force and guaranteed
solution to our development needs. There is no short cut.
We must be willing to work harder, and create surplus. We
should not be easily satisfied with the little we get. We
should not consign ourselves to a mere subsistence existence,
living from hand to mouth. It is not possible to develop without
creating a surplus, and without savings. Our nation will not
develop if each generation will always have to start from
scratch, devoid of inheritance of the surplus and reservoir
of capital and knowledge from previous generations. Let us
not only think of our present day lives, but think also of
the future of our children and of future generations.
Therefore, if
you were used to working for only four hours a day, resolve
to work for eight hours in 2001; if you were used to working
for only three days a week, decide to work for at least 5
days; if you used to work for only four months in a year,
vow now to work for at least ten months. Only then can the
fruits of economic reform reach you, and touch every citizen.
For such fruits can not be brought to you on a platter by
the Government or donors.
Fellow Citizens,
Driven by the
desire to live a modern life, we have put to much emphasis
on enumerating the requirements of a better life; and in attending
seminars and workshops that plan and evaluate, or in researching
various economic and social issues. In the new year, I
want us to evaluate our performance in terms of implementation
and results. We sorely need more action, and less words!!
I should like
to reminisce to a while about one of the founders of our nation,
the late Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume, the First President of
the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. He was neither highly
erudite, in terms of college degrees, or a participant in
seminars or workshops. But he was a strong leader, a visionary
who knew what needed to be done for the present and future
generations, and went right ahead to launch and supervise
the implementation process.
We all recognise
that during his leadership many development programmes and
projects were conceived and implemented in Zanzibar, and until
this day many citizens continue to benefit from them. He is
quoted to have once remarked: We may not be college-educated,
but we are knowledgeable and perceptive. Today we have
learned leaders, but some are neither knowledgeable nor perceptive.
In the new year, we must all seek to perceive what is required
of us, and is NOT endless analysis, NOT tomes of seminar and
workshop papers and resolutions, but actions and results!
We need results that can lend themselves to concrete evaluation,
on the basis of performance criteria that can enable us to
see if we are indeed making progress from day to day, year
to year, every community and ultimately in the entire nation.
Fellow Citizens,
Among the factors
that helped to improve our relations with our bilateral development
partners and multilateral financial institutions is the deliberate
decision we took to own our development process; to own the
process of setting priorities, of planning, and of implementing
our development programmes and projects. The greatest support
we need from our development partners is in building capacity
for implementation, and in empowering us to truly own the
entire development process, but not in setting priorities,
or in deciding what should be done, when and how.
The next phase
in the evolution of the ownership process is to bring the
concept down to the grassroots, so that the relationship between
the people and the Government should also be on the basis
of local ownership of the development process. In each community
- from the village, ward, district and region, the people
must self-diagnose their particular situation, identifying
the nature and gravity of the poverty they face, and figuring
out what needs to be done to achieve self-redemption. Then
as a community, in accordance with their rules of procedure,
such as in a Village Assembly, or in the District Council,
they have to decide what their priorities should be, and in
what way they should pool their energies, their initiatives,
and their financial and other resources in solving their problems,
in reducing their poverty and in improving social and other
services. Government's contribution can only be complementary,
by way of bridging the gap between the limit to what the people
can do on their own and the actual requirements for implementation,
as well as in building the capacity to fulfil the development
ownership responsibilities I have just outlined.
Let me also urge
various institutions and non-governmental organisations to
relate with the people within this same developmental aproach
and framework; a framework that will enable the people to
own and implement those decisions they have to take in order
to self-develop. Such institutions, however well-meaning,
must avoid raising unrealistic hopes among the people that
Government can do this and that for the people, without prior
knowledge of Government's capacity to do so. They should,
instead, help to promote the requisite concept and disposition
towards ownership of development, and towards self-development.
The war on poverty
has to begin at the level of the individual, and of each household.
A sustainable onslaught on poverty cannot begin at the level
of Government, and be forced down the throats of the people.
Rather, it must come out of an inner and genuine desire of
each citizen and each household to break free from poverty
by the sweat of their brows. Once the people have made up
their minds to improve their lives, through their own hard
work, the task of the Government becomes easier, and that
is to create a conducive environment, including providing
sustainable, measurable and practical contribution, that will
enable those who want to improve their lives to succeed.
The Government
cannot, for instance, build latrines or better houses for
everyone. The Government will do whatever it can to build
economic and social infrastructure, but this alone will not
eradicate poverty at the household level. Such poverty can
only be eradicated by the determined cognisance and hard work
of all members of each household, making full use of the conducive
environment and infrastructure put up by the Government. And
since 80% of our people depend on agriculture and livestock
for their livelihood, we cannot eradicate poverty without
first improving production and productivity in this sector.
I ask you to apply greater effort and skills as development
capital, and as decisive tools to reduce poverty.
Fellow Citizens,
We need also to
develop a common national understanding of what constitutes
development and what it entails, to grasp its parameters at
the individual and national level, and then to encourage the
will to develop along those parameters. There are national
and international indices of development. But such indices
as there are have no relevance if they do not reflect imrpovements
in the day to day lives of every citizen, and if they do not
build up the quest and determination to improve the kind of
life we lead.
Since becoming
President I have visited many parts of our country, and it
is clear to me that we do not have a common understanding
of development between different parts of our country and
there is a large difference in the individual and societal
will to develop on the basis of self-help. And I fear that
unless this situation is rectified quickly, the gap will continue
to grow between the level of development in some parts of
the country and others. Such a phenomenon, if allowed to entrench
itself, will ultimately divide our people between the better-off
and the worse-off.
Let me give an
example. Universal Primary Education is a universally acknowledged
index of development, and a tool for basic development. There
are some areas of our country where parents are willing to
sacrifice a lot to send all their children to school, sons
and aughters alike. In such parts of our country, the people
have understood that education is development. But
in this same country, there are areas where by-laws have to
be enacted and used to compel parents to send their children
to school under threat of punitive penalties. Clearly, in
such areas, parents are yet to understand that basic education
for all is a basis of, and an important step in, development.
I will give another
example. There are parts of our country where people demand
electricity for their modern houses. Such people understand
that living in a modern house is an important yardstick
of development. But in this same country, there are people
in other areas who live in dwellings, not houses, that are
not very different from those their forefathers lived in at
the turn of the last century. In the 21st century, we still
have to enact by-laws to force a significant number of our
people to build latrines and use them. And this after over
3 decades of public health education!! If each new generation
continues to live like the previous one we will not be developing.
Indeed, we will be under-developing!!
Fellow Citizens,
One of the events
that made me sad in the last weeks of the year was the death
and destruction in Kilosa District arising out of the conflict
between farmers and pastoralists. The killings were a reflection
and culmination of the increasing tendency for people to take
the law into their own hands. When a suspected thief is caught,
the people sometimes decide to play the roles of prosecutor,
jusdge and even executioner simultaneously. When drivers knock
down pedestrians, rather than fulfil their obligation to take
the injured to the hospital, they are compelled to run away
for fear of being beaten up or killed. When an old lady develops
red eyes, she is sentenced to death and executed by some members
of her own community. Even in politics, there are cases of
members from some parties deciding to "punish" those
from another party through the criminal use of force.
I urge you, my
Fellow Citizens, to stop taking the law into your own hands.
For, such behaviour gravely contravenes the rule of law. And
following the conflict in Kilosa, I want to repeat the instructions
I have repeatedly given to regional and district leaders during
my regional tours, that they must assemble and involve all
stake-holders in evolving and determining better land use
plans for all villages and districts. Villages must be
surveyed, and sustainable land use plans determined and enforced,
taking into account the reasonable needs of the various community
members.
Such an undertaking
was forged in the Lake Rukwa Basin where there was a serious
problem of land-use conflicts between farmers and pastoralists.
Under the regional and district leadership the concerned parties
decided to sit together and carry out an exhaustive and frank
dialogue on how to delineate the available land between them,
taking into account the genuine needs and concerns of each
side. At the conclusion of the dialogue they agreed on what
came to be called The Mtowisa Declaration, 1998 embodying
an equitable and self-enforceable land use system. This is
an example of how to involve all stakeholders, in an open
and frank dialogue, in resolving social conflicts amicably.
I call on those districts and regions with similar conflicts
to go an learn from the Rukwa and Mtowisa experience!
Fellow Citizens,
In my New Year
Message last year, I declared HIV/AIDS a National Disaster.
My intention in doing so was to sensitise the entire Tanzanian
nation, including Government, political, religious and civic
leaders, and non-governmental organisations, on the importance
of taking new measures to put the nation on a war-footing
against HIV/AIDS.
Today, I want
everyone to be introspective and to reflect. Have we in the
year 2000 witnessed or participated in new warlike efforts
to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, or did we let things go
on as before? How many of us have changed our own behaviour,
eschewing completely those ways of life that contribute to
the spread of HIV/AIDS? Has there been , in our communities
and streets, a new awakening and consciousness on the need
to fight HIV/AIDS? I ask you, my Fellow Citizens, every single
one of you, to seriously reflect as this year ends, to determine
what you personally did, and to what extent, as an individual
or as a leader, in waging war on HIV/AIDS.
I have established
the Tanzania National AIDS Commission (TANAIDS), but success
in containing the spread of the HIV critically depends on
the efforts of each one of us, and of each community. It is
true the Government has a role to play, but on its own it
can only do so much. For, to succeed in this endeavour the
people have to change attitudes and behaviour; and I plead
with you not to harden your hearts regarding this matter.
HIV/AIDS is a veritable threat to the very survival of our
nation, to our socio-economic development and to our welfare.
HIV/AIDS is no longer a health problem only; it is a formidable
social, political and economic challenge.
-
Statistics
on our situation are very worrying, and I should like
to share some of them with you.
-
It is estimated
that more that 1,745,000 Tanzanians are HIV positive and
can thus infect others;
-
Within the
15-49 years age group, for every 100 people, twelve (12%)
are HIV positive;
-
The estimated
number of children under the age of 15 who have lost one
or both parents to AIDS, and who were alive at the end
of 1999, were over 600,000. And those orphans who have
died since the onset of the pandemic, and the total reaches
beyond 1 million orphans; and
-
In urban hospitals,
bed occupancy with underlying HIV infection is between
50-60%.
My Fellow Citizens,
I could give more
statistics, including those on how students in secondary and
tertiary education institutions are gravely affected. But
the urgent task ahead of us is to stop the further spread
of the virus, so that those that are not yet infected should
remain uninfected. That is my plea to you today. Everyone
of you - every citizen, leader, wife, husband, parent, child,
employer, employee, and every institution - should take individual
and collective responsibility to protect him - or herself
and to speak out and educate the best ways to stop the further
spread of HIV in our country. It can be done, and to do this
must be our new year resolve and pledge.
Fellow Citizens,
The life, development,
and welfare of our nation is in our collective hands.
A certain philosopher
once said, many people waste a lot of time yearning for those
things they do not have, or can never have. We spend our energies
sulking - when we could have used those same energies, or
even less, to do, or even try to do, those things that are
within our powers or those we desire.
I ask you earnestly
that beginning in 2001, we should change so that instead of
sulking and complaining we should harness our individual and
collective will and determination to pool all our energies
to do that which we desire, and can do, in building a strong
nation, a nation of peace, unity, solidarity, justice, equal
opportunities for all, and a better life for ourselves and
for the coming generations.
I wish you all
a very happy and prosperous new year.
God bless Africa!
God Bless Tanzania!
Thank you for
your kind attention.
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APARC