KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY JAKAYA MRISHO KIKWETE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA, AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF A SPECIAL CABINET RETREAT ON TRANSFORMATION OF GOVERNMENT DELIVERY SYSTEMS, 4-5 AUGUST, 2012, DODOMA
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Your Excellency Dr. Mohammed Gharib Bilal, Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania;
Your Excellency Dr. Ali Mohammed Shein, President of Zanzibar and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council;
Honourable Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda, Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania;
Honourable Anne Makinda, Speaker of the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania;
Honourable Dato’ Sri Idris Jala, Minister and Chief Executive Officer of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), Prime Minister’s Office, Government of Malaysia;
Honourable Ministers;
Ambassador Ombeni Sefue, Chief Secretary and Head of Public Service;
Dr. Abdulhamid Yahya Mzee, Chief Secretary, Zanzibar;
Permanent Secretaries;
Distinguished facilitators from PEMANDU;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
I am pleased to welcome you all to this unique seminar on Transformation of Government Delivery Systems. To you Dato’ Idris Jala and the entire team from Malaysia and the United States, I say welcome to Tanzania and welcome to Dodoma. In a very special way let me sincerely thank the government of Malaysia for allowing you and your colleagues to come and share with us the experience of Malaysia. I also commend Dr. Philip Mpango, the Executive Secretary of the Planning Commission and his staff for organizing this important Seminar so well. To all my fellow participants may you realize that this is a rare opportunity for us so we must utilize well.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
The idea of holding this Seminar was conceived in May 2011 during my participation at the Langkawi International Dialogue that took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was during that meeting the Malaysian government shared with Heads of State and Government attending the meeting, two of their development models. These were the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). All of us were fascinated by these models and wanted to learn more about Malaysia’s experience, particularly its delivery systems. The idea hidden behind the minds of all of us was the wish to learn more about these models and see how to emulate their good examples.
The government of Malaysia accepted our request and organized a special seminar in November 2011 on the Big Fast Results (BFR) approach. They invited senior officials from different countries of the Smart Partnership Movement to participate. We sent a delegation led by Dr. Phillip Mpango, the Executive Secretary of the Planning Commission, to attend the Seminar. Indeed, the delegation came back home excited and eager to see our government use the BFR methodology to help us perform better in the discharge of our responsible.
It is worth mentioning that the Prime Minister of Malaysia did a special favour to me when he agreed to allow Dato’ Idris Jala to give Tanzania extra tuition after the general briefing to all Heads of State and Government. It was during this private session that I requested Dato’ Idris Jala to come to Tanzania and conduct this seminar to my Cabinet and other senior government officials. It is heartwarming, indeed, that we have him and his powerful team with us this morning.
On return from the November, 2011 seminar, Dr. Mpango and his team began preparations for this seminar. They worked tirelessly with PEMANDU and Mckinsey to develop ideas and concretise the preparations of holding this seminar. This event today, therefore, is the outcome of the tremendous efforts of the Planning Commission of Tanzania and PEMANDU of Malaysia. Personally, I have been anxious to see this seminar is held because I thought what I learnt in Malaysia was worth sharing with the top echelons of my government. I believe learning the ABCs of Big Fast Results approach will interest all of us gathered here and inspire us to do better.
Excellencies;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Many of you here may know that at our independence in 1961, the per capita income of Mainland Tanzania was about the same level as that of India and Pakistan. More interesting, our economic structure was generally similar to that of India, Pakistan and to some extent that of Malaysia. The economies of all the four countries were characterized by heavy dependency on agriculture. For example, in Tanzania the contribution of agriculture to GDP was 59 percent, Pakistan 45 percent, India 42 percent, and Malaysia 36 percent. The share of manufacturing sector in each of those four countries was less that 15 percent of GDP.
After 50 years, one can no longer compare Tanzania with those other three countries. They have just moved too many steps up the ladder of socio-economic transformation and development. While Tanzania remains undeveloped, heavily depending on agriculture with a low per capita income of US dollar 550, India, Pakistan and Malaysia have transformed their economies to remarkable levels. They have become highly industrialized and the share of agriculture has diminished significantly although it remains highly productive. These countries are big exporter of food and manufactured goods.
With regard to Malaysia, her story is even more fascinating. The country has been transformed incredibly from a commodity-based economy focusing on rubber and tin at independence in 1957 to one of the world’s largest producers of electronics and electrical products. They make cars and military hardware including sub-marines.
Malaysia is now a high middle income, export-oriented economy with per capita income close to US dollar 10,000. Their target now is to become a developed country by 2020. Coming from such humble beginnings to what it is today gives us inspiration that we too can make it. That is why I felt learning their examples particularly about how they made it relevant to our country.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Since 1961 Tanzania’s political leadership both on the mainland and Zanzibar have demonstrated strong political will to see their country develop fast. They identified poverty, disease and ignorance as the most critical challenges to the country’s development. Indeed, deliberate and focused efforts have been made in order to overcome these challenges. Immediately after the independence the government launched the first development plan for 1961-1964 and later made a longer development plan of 15 years (1964-1980), divided into three equal implementation periods of five years.
Some of you will recall that the implementation of the first two phases were encouraging, but the third phase between 1975-1980 was heavily disrupted by various challenges of the time including drought, fuel crisis and disintegration of the East Africa Community. On top of that, the government was also forced to divert the resources from the development activities to protect the country’s territorial integrity during the Idd Amin invasion in 1978. Later in the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s, in response to the deteriorating economic situation, a major economic shift was made by introducing a market-oriented economy.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Despite the many challenge encountered in our past planning initiatives, in 1994 the government started the preparations of another long term national development vision whose objective was to help lift millions of Tanzanians out of poverty. Subsequently it meant making the country graduate into middle –income country by 2025.The work of preparing the new national development framework was completed in 1999 and the new blue print document that builds on the National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction as well as sector specific programmes was launched.
As you will recall, in 2008 I established the Planning Commission. Among the major tasks I directed it to do was to undertake a comprehensive review of the Vision 2025 and develop structured systems of guiding its implementation. The Commission dutifully obliged. They came up with both a Reviewed Vision 2025 and proposals for a long Term Development Plan divided into three phases of five years each. In June, 2011 we launched the first of the three Five Years Development Plan covering the period 2011/12 – 2015/16. The main objective of this plan is to remove obstacles to growth and unleash Tanzania’s latent growth potentials.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Our persistent efforts and commitment have enabled us to post modest progress, especially at the macro-economic level: macro-economic stability has been preserved; expenditure on social services has increased; exports and foreign currency reserves have increased; FDI flow has increased; inflation has been kept in check despite current challenges. We have enjoyed relatively high economic growth rates over the past decade and a half. We have registered a modest increase of per capita income. However despite the encouraging progress we still have long ground to cover as poverty remained a major challenge. Many people still live below the poverty line.
In my view strengthening government delivery systems and improving the performance of the private sector and the individual farmer and worker is the answer. We would be able to adequately translate our wishes inscribed on the many papers and documents into concrete results that would change lives of our people and our nation. Learning from examples of friends who not long ago were at our level could be useful. That is why we have invited our Malaysian friends to come and tell us their story of success and learn from their good examples.
Excellencies;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
This Seminar is intended to do that. I would like it to be a turning point towards a journey where plans are effectively implemented; where performance will be measured against clear and concrete deliverables. Let it be a journey of hope that will ensure the first five year development plan and indeed the long-term dream of Vision 2025 is realized in a timely manner. It is a journey of entrenching accountability that will see us move beyond planning and focus more on implementing what we have agreed to do in order to realize socio-economic transformation and development of our country. A journey that we must all embark today and lead Tanzanians and their great country to momentous victory in the fight against underdevelopment, hunger, poverty and deprivation.
Distinguished Participants;
This requires of us all to read all our major national development frameworks including the first five year development plan of 2011/ 12 – 2015/16 and the Vision 2025. We should fully understand the thrust and priorities contained in those frameworks. We must align our policies and sectoral budgets to the objectives of the major national development frameworks. There should be unity of purpose, because all of us are working towards a common goal. But all these efforts would be meaningless if our follow up mechanisms and delivery systems remain weak.
A strong delivery system is a key element to sustainable improvement and development. A weak delivery system breeds a poor service delivery to the public and makes it difficult to break the poverty cycle. In this regard, the time has come for Tanzania to formulate sound delivery frameworks and hold political leaders and top executives responsible for their failures.
Perhaps this Seminar is a good starting point that will enable us to develop a forceful follow up mechanisms. I therefore implore all of you here to be attentive throughout the Seminar and learn the new tested approaches of delivering high quality services to citizens and develop a nation.
Engage facilitators, seek clarification and also share your own experience and frustrations. There is a lot to learn and improve upon.
Excellencies;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
In conclusion, I want to thank once again the government of Malaysia for accepting our invitation and agreeing to send Honourable Jala and his team. I also thank the Planning Commission for excellent arrangements of the Seminar. We are now ready to listen, learn and be converted. I look forward to a successful Seminar.
Thank you for your kind attention.
