Kinana hints at major CCM transformation

CCM Secretary-General Abdulrahman Kinana addresses a public rally in Mwanza yesterday.  Mr Kinana was in Mwanza Region in the final leg of his countrywide tour. PHOTO | MICHAEL JAMSON 

By Bernard Lugongo,The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

• CCM Secretary-General Abdulrahman Kinana tells rally in Mwanza during a tour of the region that the party should be led by people who are not in government to give it more supervisory and oversight powers

Dar es Salaam. The Chama Cha Mapinduzi is planning to revamp its structure in a bid to enhance its effectiveness in overseeing the government by putting in place a system in which party leaders will not be part of the government.

CCM secretary general Abdulrahman Kinana stated yesterday at a public rally in Mwanza that one of the things he has learnt over time was that the party doesn’t have enough powers to supervise the government much as it is the one which formed it, having won the elections.

He told hundreds of Mwanza residents who attended the rally meant to conclude his 26-month countrywide that he started soon after he was appointed secretary general. The tour was meant to strengthen the party and assess how the CCM election manifesto for the 2010 elections was implemented.

“We want to exclude the President and his ministers from party leadership; the party should be in the hands of other members, not the Executive,” Mr Kinana said.

“Our aim is to provide the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) ample powers to oversee the government because the government belongs to the party.”

Mr Kinana said that during his trips, he learnt that even party leaders at the grassroots level were complaining over some problems that have been introduced by the government but they lacked the mandate to reprimand the culpable public officials.

“This situation disappoints citizens when they note that even leaders of the party which is in power are also complaining,” he said.

The party supremo said he was also not happy with some of the laws that Parliament—which has an overwhelming CCM majority—has passed while they are adversely affecting the citizens.

He wondered why the government has been reluctant to remove bad laws that seemed to displease the majority of the people.

“The sad thing is that I have never seen the government withdraw laws which were clearly bad to the people, while it kept on enacting more such laws,” he said.

Mr Kinana also told off government leaders who shy from of going to the citizens to hear about challenges facing them.

“There are only a few ministers who bother to go to listen to the people; most of them prefer going abroad or attending seminars, forgetting that their positions are meant to offer service to the people,” he said.