- Dennis Londo
4. term, Development and International Relations, Master (Master Programme)
The general trends of economic growth and rise of country’s GDP play a decisive role in confirming the availability of resources which the government has access with for the public use. These sources of revenue are mainly through taxation and other source of income such as royalty. The wealthy generation from the availability of source of revenue may be seen through the improvement of public infrastructure and improvement of general life standards, if the distributions of revenue are equal however.
Contrary to that, economic contingencies such as crisis or stagnation may imply the limited availability of government revenue, and therefore, the economic declining may be reflected on minuscule government expenditure, low public spending and poverty among citizens. However, this assumption may proved to be wrong in the case of Tanzania, since in the last decades the country experience rapid economic growth contributed mainly by extractive and services sectors, in addition massive loans and development aid.
The analyses of embedded autonomy to understand free market Tanzanian economy provide evidence that liberalization process exposed Tanzania to rent seeking and predatory practices that eroded the quality governance and weakening the bureaucratic quality. The trend shows the Tanzanian government have weak regulatory framework to control its rules as illegal rent seeking activities and other predatory practices are rampant, and criminals are ‘immune’ from being prosecuted as they are ‘systematically protected’. However, as interest groups of elites competing to maximize the share of transfers, certainly the activities are involving non-democratic practices such as ‘money politics’ to attain and protract the political machinery. Apparently, the consequences of wealth transfer competition among interest groups are; weakening and wreck down the social fabric, as the actions appear to obliterate Tanzanian democratic system as well as country’s justice system. This situation is likely to bring in social unrest.
The findings support the need for Tanzania to rethink its embedded policy, where the government will play a central role, and engaging effectively in the economy by ensuring fair distribution to its citizens. This is because wealth generation which mainly comes from FDI seemingly not helping the nation positively, since the budget still financed by foreign donors by 42 per cent; the foreign loans have been increasing dramatically vis-à-vis deteriorating public infrastructures such as education, health care and transport system. Nevertheless, the Tanzanian rapid economic growth do not reflected in the life of the common Tanzanian, since individual poverty have been increasing and public redistribution are highly unequal, while a small elites enriches themselves while majority living still under one USD a day.
The problem discovered by this study, is all these economic and possible socially adversaries are originate from the emergence of political entrepreneurs groups; whose efforts to maximize self gains through political process, have potentially undermine the quality of governance and weakening the public institutions accountability and encouraging rent seeking and corruption which posing a serious challenge to the Tanzanian economic growth as well as future country’s stability.
Language | English |
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Publication date | 2008 |
Number of pages | 92 |
Publishing institution | Aalborg University |