Editorial Cartoon
He told MPs that UK envoy Dianna Melrose had organized meetings not only with local non-governmental organizations to castigate the government over the move, but rallied other ‘development partners’ to think of withholding aid to Tanzania on that account.
The deputy minister went far enough to seek formal resignation of the envoy in her position as UK High Commissioner to Tanzania, a role that wasn’t his.
While a number of commentators have focused on the substance of the matter, as to UK feelings on an internal issue escrow account closure and the usual diffidence on ‘neocolonial’ tendencies of being told what to do, and this was evidently the deputy minister’s line of thinking, the crucial issue lies elsewhere.
It is a preposterous scenario where a deputy minister virtually declares the envoy of a vital partner state like Britain as if he was asking for the president to remove his own district commissioner back home.
It was this breach of protocol and lack of awareness of his own place in the government that certainly astonished many people, reminding the rest of us of how the constitutional conference was being conducted, its bravado and sense of humour. Carrying that state of mind into foreign policy was stupid.
Tanzania is of course lucky that High Commissioner Melrose did not choose tit for tat, perhaps as the last act of a lifelong effort to combat corruption in foreign aid and contractual relationships.
Had she chosen that way of doing things, a la Stephen Masele, and then spilled the beans on what the UK Serious Fraud Office says about the closure of that escrow account, with what soap brand would Tanzanian officials, especially those in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, wash their faces? What would be the consequences for political stability, peace?
That this did not happen because of an undisciplined MP seeking to undermine the government but from the precincts of the cabinet of ministers says a lot about etiquette and total ignorance of duties and responsibilities.
It is testimony of the chaos that often leads to change of the cabinet because the legislature has grown tired of either a third or quarter of them, and it will please so many people to see them go.
Applying this method of governance and back biting attitudes that have become the hallmark of legislature and CCM internal politics, to what we think of foreign envoys could prove a costly misadventure.
While indeed the diplomatic row has been put aside, once and for all, and at any rate there really wasn’t one because no government official ever supported the preposterous accusations leveled by the deputy minister, it is only a matter of time before it happens again. It could be during this legislature or anytime after the next general elections, as not every envoy takes things lying down.
And with the world moving towards trade rather than aid, Dr Jekyll and My Hyde tactics in big money contracts will always bring up trouble. Tendencies of contempt of authority and protocol will be on the rise in future, not declining.
Perhaps Tanzania is too used to having its way, due to international sympathy owing to its old role in liberation politics, and almost universal sympathy for its welfare policies of the Arusha Declaration.
Public officials are perhaps taking too long to realize that the country’s image has since changed; we are now a less performing economy, a visibly corrupt one, and aiding us is seen as wasteful. Next time we tell off an envoy for broaching the truth, the gods could choose to be less helpful, and woe betide rulers who will be stripped of cover, dignity. It is better we learn from this incident.
SOURCE:
GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
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