PM Pinda defends 900bn/- allowances

PM Pinda defends 900bn/- allowances

The opposition and citizen feels he is getting out of his way, he has forgotten his poor roots,

The fight against corruption and illegal accumulation of wealth has taken a new turn with a development that has taken the form of anti-allowances crusade spearheaded by Chadema opposition party and the NCCR-Mageuzi.

The debate on the abolition of unnecessary allowances and per diems which was recently set in motion in Parliament in Dodoma by Mr Zitto Kabwe has drawn in more players from a section of Mps from the ruling party CCM, the Civic United Front, activists, academicians, the general public and members of the diplomatic corp.

Presenting the opposition’s shadow Budget in Parliament, Mr Zitto said the culture of allowances was costly, unnecessary and motivating public servants not to work but spend most of their time figuring out how to travel or sit in conferences or meetings to earn allowances.

Allowances, per diems and honorariums have been cited as consuming considerable part of government revenue while the public still suffers from poor health and education delivery services.

For example, the government’s 2011/2012 budget has set aside 987bn/- for allowances alone. According to Mr Zitto, this was expensive, unsustainable and unjustifiable. Why do we pay people to do the job they are employed to do and paid a salary for? For Zitto allowances were illegal payments that public servants should not be paid at all.

If the foregoing amount was directed toward energy production, it would have bought thermal powered plants capable of churning out more than 1000MW, hence ending the present power blues. This assertion was based on costs used for buying 160MW plants at Ubungo and Mwanza.

Mr Zitto opted to lead by example. In his letter to the Speaker, Ms Anne Makinda, Mr Zitto told her that he would no longer pick his allowances because he considered his attendance in parliamentary and standing committees’ sessions as part and parcel of his duties as an MP.

He requested the Speaker to help him in ensuring that until the allowances were abolished, his allowances be sent to Kigoma Development Initiative, an NGO in his constituency, a request that was turned down by the speaker and her parliament office.

However, as the debate picked form, the discussion started focusing on moral groups for paying and receiving allowances and whether allowances were illegal payments that could save the country billions of money if stopped.

For one to understand the genesis of the hefty allowances currently paid to members of parliament it is important to take a hard look at why the allowances were fixed in the first place.

The allowances were first introduced by the government in order to help in cushioning Mps’ salaries after being subjected to hefty deductions towards settlement of their loans which more often than not went to pay off their four wheel luxury vehicles.

Apart from helping Mps in settling their loans, the allowances also served as government’s carrot in ensuring its control over Mps when dealing with matters related to government’s issues in the House.

And because one of the government’s motives was to bring influence to bear on the Mps, such allowances were corruption aimed at making Mps responsive to the government rather than the people who had elected them into the august House in the first place.

Such allowances in the case of Tanzanian journalists have come to be referred to as brown envelopes and have had an untold damage on the profession.

For any corporate body that wants its message to see the light of the day, it has no alternative but to ensure that it hands such envelopes to journalists at the end of its press conference or meeting!

But brown envelopes referred to as chonji among South Korean journalists would not have reared its ugly head in Tanzania had the practice not been started by none other than development partners and their agencies late in 1980s during the dawn of media liberalization.

In the case of civil servants, sitting allowances are double payment in the sense that attending official meetings is part and parcel of the job description of such a civil servant who is paid a monthly salary along with some fringe benefits.

It should be noted that sitting allowances are different from other allowances such as travelling and overtime allowances.

While the latter covers cost incurred, extra time and extra work done by the public servant, the former ought to be paid to third parties who are not in the payroll of the government, but have been invited to attend government meeting/activities.

In showing their discontent to allowances and other embezzlement, the international community through former German President, Horst Koehler said development partners were monitoring the debate in parliament with keen interest.

He called on the government to handle the issue with utmost care as it could easily damage its image. He said it did not make sense for civil servants who earned salaries and other perks to be paid allowances.

Koehler’s message was very clear, and that is, if the government maintained allowances then development partners would reduce their assistance in budget support to the Tanzanian government.

This is however, not the first time that allowances are being questioned.

It would be recalled that in January 2010, the CTS published an article titled, Allowances and per diems in public service: a new form of corruption?

This followed a report by Policy Forum which was published in November 2009.

The said report indicated that the government had planned to use 509bn/- on allowances in the 2008/2009 financial year.

According to the report, this amount was equal to the salary of two thirds of teachers in the country! Development partners have more than once stressed to the Tanzanian government on the importance of sticking to priorities and its adherence to good governance.

For instance, during the 2009/2010 budget, development partners decided to teach the government a lesson when it withheld 220m US (346.5bn/-) in budget support.

In fact nothing illustrated the government’s failure to learn from its past follies than Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda’s statement that supported continued payment of allowances barely two days after the former International Monetary Fund, IMF, chief executive officer had spoken against allowances!

Pinda was responding, in his Thursday’s parliamentary question time slot, on the government’s stance on allowances.

He justified payment of sitting allowances to all public servants by saying that Mps have a lot of bills to foot from their electorates.

“…the moment an Mp steps out of this hall, he/she is requested by one of his/her constituents to help in covering costs on a variety of things that include, among others, transport, school fees…” he said.

He called on the opposition not to exaggerate the matter as it is a normal practice and that he was quite sure the allowances issue was not supported by all CHADEMA Mps. Hon Pinda said the MPs deserved the allowances because of their pay was not enough to meet the burden of their work in their constituencies.

In an effort to reinforce Pinda’s stand, the Minister for Finance and Economy, Mr. Mustafa Mkulo, said the government is not intending to abolish any statutory allowances for any official as the issue had been blown out of proportion by the media and the opposition. He down-played figures on allowances by saying that the real figure stood at 352.7bn/- as opposed to 987bn/-.

This followed an announcement by the leader of the opposition in the House, Mr Freeman Mbowe, when he wrote a letter to the Clerk of the National Assembly informing him of his decision to return the government’s vehicle that had been given to him.

Mr Mbowe said in his letter that it was the stand of all CHADEMA Mps not to receive any sitting allowances paid to them after attending parliamentary sessions.

Indeed, as the budget debate wound up in Dodoma, Mr Pinda’s statement in defense of allowances was seen as a complete turnaround from his previous posture as a pro poor person in defense of rights of the poor. Just last year Mr Pinda directed government ministers to stop purchasing luxury vehicles as a cost cutting measure on government expenditure. His stand on allowances has drawn mixed feelings.