Its implementation has been dragging for the past seven years due to lack of funds, but the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation now has allocated more than Sh2 billion for the work.

APRM aims at monitoring progress in governance and good practices in four areas: democracy and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance and socioeconomic development.

Unveiling the ministry’s 2011/12 budget in Dodoma last week, the minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Bernard Membe, told the National Assembly that the money would be available this financial year.

Reacting to the government’s move, the Tanzania APRM executive secretary, Ms Rehema Twalib, said yesterday the Sh2 billion budget would pave the way for reviewing and updating a 2009 country self-assessment report which was prepared by the Tanzania APRM secretariat operating under the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

“The budget allocation is good news as we will also be able to repay the country’s outstanding annual subscription of $700,000 (about Sh1 billion) to APRM,” she told The Citizen by phone.

The APRM annual continental subscription is $100,000 (about Sh150 million) but Tanzania has not honoured its subscription for the last seven years.

Ms Twalib added that a review mission from the AU was expected to visit Tanzania in September to validate and ascertain the contents of the country self-assessment report before its submission to an AU summit.
The country’s self-assessment report has addressed the four thematic areas where the country is lagging behind and where it is faring well.

Governance challenges that the report has identified include corporate governance, economic governance and democracy and political governance.  

Ms Twalib said the report had identified that the socioeconomic development area had a shortage of qualified staff in education and health sectors, lack of markets for agricultural produce and poor infrastructure, especially in rural areas.

On corporate governance, she said the report pinpointed poor enforcement of rules and regulations that appear to favour investors and giving them inadequate obligations, including ensuring that workers are given handsome remunerations and creating conducive working environment.

According to her, the report also reveals a major problem in economic governance as poor trickledown of economic benefits to the population.

The report also highlights areas where Tanzania is doing relatively well. They include those in maintaining a peaceful country brought up by the use of one common language — Kiswahili — and successful succession of leadership every after five years.

Other areas that the country is faring well include gender balance, improvement in macroeconomic governance where the problem remains translation of its successes to the people and improved partnership between the government and the private sector.

There has also been improvement in making public reports of the Controller and Auditor General that enable people to monitor expenditure of the taxpayers’ money.

There has been considerable improvement in the construction of trunk roads but the challenge now should be to develop feeder roads to enable farmers in rural areas to ferry their produce to the markets.

Asked whether Sh2 billion was enough as the budget for implementation of the entire APRM process is estimated at Sh4 billion, Ms Twalib said: “At least the Sh2 billion budget is an indication that the government is serious towards implementation of the APRM process.”

Political analysts say the country is likely to lose its credibility by not implementing the APRM process.

This is the case because citizens believe that solving governance challenges is a gateway to poverty alleviation. International development partners believe that addressing governance challenges facing the country is a bold step towards making the world a better place.

In May, more than 50 civil society organisations met in Dar es Salaam and raised concern over the government’s dilly-dallying in implementing APRM.

They said the APRM process was a significant mechanism to audit governance in Africa, including Tanzania.
Uganda, Rwanda and Ghana that have seriously committed themselves to the process.