Tanzania’s attempts to encourage civic participation in policy-making and resource allocation began in the 1960s when a new ministry for Regional Administration and Rural Development, a Region Development Fund and Regional Economic Secretariats were created to support sub-national community development initiatives. A ‘decentralization’ program was initiated in 1972 to transfer key functions for development planning, coordination and management to regional and district administrations where Regional and District Development Committees were formed to coordinate local level planning. Village Councils were established in 1975 to further strengthen grass-root participation but all powers for decision-making and resource allocation remained centralized, while local government authorities (LGAs) were abolished, which curtailed effective participation.

 

LGAs were reinstated in 1982, after a 1997 constitutional amendment (URT, 1977), which entrenched local government to ensure civic participation in policy-making and budgetary decisions, through Articles 145 (1) and 146 (1) of the constitution that state: 

Despite the constitution, bad governance and tight control of central government over LGAs and on resource allocation continued to forestall public participation making it imperative for government to initiate the Local Government Reform Program (LGRP) to build capacity of the LGAs, increase their financial autonomy and decision-making authority and generally, foster good governance (URT 1998), so as to improve access to, and quality of public services delivery around the following 6 specific objectives:

1.     To foster democracy, participatory decision-making, transparency and accountability;

2.     To restructure LGAs into effective and efficient service delivery organs;

3.     To improve intergovernmental fiscal transfer systems, devolve viable revenue sources and budgetary authority to LGAs and enhance efficient use of resources in LGAs;

4.     To decentralize personnel management authority to the LGAs, improve human resource management and ensure staff accountability to the LGAs;

5.     To build capacity in LGAs through training and skills development in planning, budgeting, performance monitoring and financial management;

6.     To reform the central-local regulatory framework in favour of autonomous LGAs.

 

The Regional Administration Act No. 19 of 1997, the four main Acts No 7-10 of 1982 on local government (LG) and the Local Authorities (Elections) Act No 4 of 1979 were revised in 1999 and 2000, to remove approval powers of the Minister and regional authorities on LG budgets and reallocations, to increase the executive autonomy of LGAs and to increase and secure democratic participation of citizens in sub-national civic policy and budgetary decisions decision-making. Lean regional secretariats were formed to facilitate and assist LGAs perform their duties.

4.2 Election of representatives to LGA:

Tanzania has a unitary constitution but LGAs are empowered by delegation to make by-laws consistent with the written laws for carrying out their functions, subject to approval by the Minister responsible for Local Government, and to impose penalty. 

4.4 Definition, collection and management of own fiscal revenue and expenditure

LGAs have powers to impose tax, fees and charges to raise own fiscal revenues and to incur expenditure to carry out their functions, to invest in special funds, make advances, operate deposits or hold suspense accounts. The LG Finance Act No. 9 of 1982 prescribes 23 and 27 own revenue sources for urban and district (rural) LGAs respectively. It also empowers Village Councils to prescribe fees for any license or permit issued by them, and to manage expenditure and enables community control on public resources in many other areas as shown underneath: 

Grants for capitation and construction projects are transferred to recurrent and development accounts that are maintained by school committees comprised of community representatives (URT 2001a). The committees manage both expenditure and procurement for goods and services and they employ contractors for school construction works. The committees prepare school development plans in consultation with Ward Development Committees and these are incorporated into the annual development plan of LGAs for funding. The latter perform audits on the school accounts, assign engineers to supervise construction and provide legal advise on contracts and procurement to the committees.

Beginning from the late 1990s, reforms in the health sector introduced mechanism for involving citizens in managing health services delivery through Council Health Service Boards (CHSBs), Hospital Governing Boards (HGBs) and Community Health Committees CHCs) that have been established for each public health center, dispensary or clinic, and in the rural districts, for each ward (Levaque L. 1999). The boards and committees comprise elected community representatives. They set priorities, supervise, monitor and evaluate quality of health services; they advise LGAs on planning, personnel and other resource allocation, and they mobilize and mange community contributions (URT 2001b).

 

CHSBs discuss and pass annual health services delivery plans received from the ward and health facility committees, and submit their recommendations to the standing committees of the LGAs for incorporation into the LG annual health plans. In this way they influence the manner in which public resources are used in health service delivery. Activities of the health boards and committees including training of members once elected are funded by the LGAs. Medical officers of Health of the LGA and health facilities, who report to the council or facility management, serve as board and committee secretaries respectively, ensuing interaction of the board and committees with management.

The national water development policy directs for community involvement in managing local water projects, through water user committees of democratically elected representatives. The committees collect cost recovery revenue and manage expenditure, operation and maintenance and to expand services.

4.5 The right to receive credit:

LGAs are empowered to raise loans, advances or over drafts from within the country and they determine the amount, source, manner, purpose and conditions of credit, in so far as it does not at any time, exceed their income in the previous fiscal year, subject to the approval of the Minister responsible for LGAs, who consults with the Minister of Finance. There is a Local Government Loans Board that provides loans to LGAs on concessionary terms from mandatory contributions of all LGAs.

LGAs in Tanzania collect revenue for other entities of the state, and for civic and private sector institutions in many areas including the following:

4.6.1       Collection of tax revenue for state agencies:

Employee income tax, 2% withholding tax from suppliers and contractors not registered for VAT on behalf of the Tanzania Revenue Authority, and land rent for the Ministry of Lands and Human Settlements development.

4.6.2       Collection of revenue from returns on special, government funds:

Examples include: Youth, Women, Agriculture and Livestock Development Funds.

4.6.3       Collection of revenue on employee statutory and voluntary contributions:

For insurance schemes, pension and provident Funds, Credit and Savings Associations, Cooperative Societies and trade unions.

Including employee loans and advances recovery for banks, hire purchase and other financial institutions, community contributions to various participatory projects for donors and other agencies and tax revenue for other LGAs, as in Dar es Salaam city.

LGAs in Tanzania perform several functions for other agencies including:

       i.     Electoral duties such as nominations, training and supervision of electoral staff, registration and polling for the National Electoral Commission;

     ii.     Census enumeration functions for the Tanzania Bureau of Statistics.

   iii.     Land delivery services for the Ministry of Lands and other agencies.

   iv.     Managing local HIV/AIDS programs for the Tanzania Commission for AIDS.

     v.     Managing community water and sanitation schemes for Water Authorities.

   vi.     Practical training of students from various training institutions.

 vii.     Awareness and community mobilization campaigns for state and other programs.

Tanzania’s LGAs have full autonomy over own source revenue and expenditure but central government transfers that mainly target priority sectors in education, health, water, roads and agriculture, and for salaries of senior staff in all, but the administration and finance departments are conditional. The constitution instructs government to allocate national resources to bring about equal development for poverty eradication poverty and the modalities to give effect to the intergovernmental fiscal transfers are spelt out in the Local Government Finance Act No. 9. In fiscal year 2003/2004 budgeted grants to LGAs amounted to Tsh 290.97 billion (USD 290.97mn) from the national budget of Tsh 2.61 trillion (USD 2.61bn), equivalent to 11.16% of the budget. The current allocation system, however, is inefficient, cumbersome and non-transparent. Allocations based, not based on objective criteria or formulae but more on the lobbying ability of LGAs, aggravating and accentuating central control over LGAs, which have no powers to set expenditure priorities, and therefore, lack motivation to increase efficiency in service delivery, or to be accountable to the citizens. Thus the current transfer system inhibits participatory budgeting but also. It perpetuates existing inequalities by basing calculations on achievements such as the school enrollment, as opposed to needs, such as the number school age children.

 

Intergovernmental fiscal reforms have introduced new formula based systems of conditional block grants allocation for education and health services that make up 88% of all transfers to the LGAs, with effect from the 2004/05 financial year, which starts from July 1^st. The new system will be rolled over to all sectors within the current Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) plan period from 2004 – 2006, and unconditional grants will be introduced from January 2005 to LGAs that meet the following minimum access conditions of capacity and accountability:

1.     Final Accounts for the previous financial year submitted for audit in time,

2.     The LGA did not receive an adverse audit report on the last audited accounts,

3.     No confirmed mismanagement of funds has occurred since the last audit report,

4.     The LGA has an approved plan and budget,

5.     Quarterly progress reports on project implementation submitted in time

6.     Positions of LGA Director and Treasurer substantively filled,

7.     Bank reconciliation statements for all accounts prepared monthly,

8.     Internal audit in place and functional,

9.     All quarterly reports during the previous financial year presented to council and copies to President’s Office, regional Administration and Local Government,

10. Sufficient funds available to meet the co-funding obligation (minimum 5%),

11. Budget process adhered to the provisions of the LG Act and Planning and Budgeting guidelines,

12. Legally constituted Tender Board and National Procurement guidelines and manuals available,

13. Regular meetings of the council –at least one meeting held every 3 months – and minutes of the council meetings placed on a permanent            record,

14. Annual and quarterly work plans available.

Until recently, the amount and timing of transfers to LGAs was uncertain, often falling far short of the budget estimates. This has now been rectified especially for the education and health sector wide approach of common basket fund mechanisms, introduced under the HIPC dept relief modalities. Transfers are now based on population size and enrolment respectively, making them more certain and predictable. Allocation of road funds is equally predictable, being based on a performance agreement, signed between the Roads Fund Board and the President’s Office - Regional Administration and Local Government. Transfers in respect of the three sectors take account of pre-approved development, operations and maintenance plans of the LGAs, subject to government revenue projections. Being based on a clear set of service delivery responsibilities of the LGAs, these changes have made profound impact on increasing the mandates of LGAs for decision-making and resource allocation. The recently adopted three-year Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) system for planning and budgeting, which consolidates government revenue and expenditure projections over a three year timeframe will lead to an even higher degree of predictability and certainty in fiscal transfers. 

 

Several tools have been applied to facilitate public participation in policy and budgetary decision-making in Tanzania including the following:

Article 18 (2) of the constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to access information of importance to their lives and activities and to society. Effective participation in policy and budgetary decision-making requires timely stakeholder access to adequate, quality, and properly structured information that is disseminated in a comprehensible and attractive manner, in print, audio, visual or electronic form; through annual reports or periodic thematic reports, advertisements, press releases, press conferences and press interviews; and, by using communication methods that enable feed back such as conferences or exhibitions, public hearings and suggestion boxes.

 

Tanzania’s MTEF planning and budgeting approach that incorporates recurrent and development government expenditure from all revenue sources including donor funds, over a three-year period, enables sub-national entities and citizens to have advance information on projected expenditure, including transfers form central government over the three-year time frame and enables the sub-national entities to prepare realistic programs and plans of their own.

 

Government publishes all quarterly transfers to LGAs by posting advertisements in the mass media. The published information is disaggregated by sector so that all citizens are informed of the exact amount of transfers made to their LGAs for education, health, roads, water supply, agriculture and administration. Citizens access this information from newspapers LGAs are also required to report all transfers received from the central government and to report on expenditure in public meetings and by posting such information on their notice boards, at ward offices and other public places such as schools and health facilities where citizens can more easily access the information. Accounts of all LGAs are audited annually by the Controller and Auditor-General and LGAs are obliged to publish the annual balance sheet and statement of abstract, or any report on the accounts made by the auditor within six months after close of the financial year or after receipt of the auditor’s report

 

Disclosure of transfers creates trust of citizens on government and enhances accountability of LGAs to the citizens because they can no longer explain away failure to provide services to a lack of financial resources. Disclosure of transfers made to lower level entities such as to school committees are disaggregated to specific activities, such as construction or renovation of a specified number of classrooms or school toilets, or to purchase a specified number and type of text books. Such information enables citizens to monitor expenditure and to lodge complaints on obvious abuse of public funds. More significantly, disclosure of transfers brought to light the wide disparities in allocation to LGAs, which enabled the Association of the Local Authorities of Tanzania to advise, and the parliament to direct the government to adopt a fair, formula based allocation system. The announcements have helped to check theft of public funds that previously occurred when corrupt officials diverted some of the transfers for personal gain. More public awareness and training on how to make good use of the published information would appear necessary to ensure that the information is accessed by all citizens and used in a constructive manner.

 

LGAs operate through standing committees that recommend policy, budgetary and operational decisions for approval of the full council, which meets at least once in every three months to discuss reports from the standing committees While proceedings of the committees are not generally open to the public or the press except by resolution of the LGA, the full council meetings are, by law, open to members of the public and the press who are entitled to attend and listen to deliberations of the council but they cannot comment or participate in discussions. The right to attend council meetings guarantees public access to information in respect of all matters of the LGAs, enabling them to monitor and evaluate performance and budget implementation. In practice, however, few citizens attend these meetings but the press is well represented, especially in the cities.

 

The law empowers citizens to inspect minutes of the proceedings of the full council and any person may obtain an extract of the minutes upon payment of a prescribed fee. With written authorization by the Regional Commissioner, citizens are entitled by law to access and inspect all books of accounts and records of the LGA and may advice the LGA on the matters contained in the records or submit a report to the regional Commissioner in connection to the records. Though it is silent on this matter, a report to the Regional Commissioner amounts to a petition on the books of accounts of a LGA.

 

The Civil Service Management Unit of the central government has of recent, established a tradition for requesting explanations from LGAs and other public institutions on matters regarding their affairs that are published in the press including public comments and complaints against them, which de-facto has opened up new opportunities for public petitions on LGAs and other public institutions. All LGAs are required to maintain suggestion boxes and to deliver accountability reports at the end of each fiscal year in a public meeting. The National Television Station (TVT) has also introduced a program to records and air live discussions, views, comments and complaints of communities around particular issues. The recorded tape is then sent to relevant LGA officials who prepare responses, which are aired live on TV, in ‘a more interactive way of dealing with requests from citizens’ that enables ‘government officials give direct answers to questions received from citizens’ (OECD 2001). The parliament allows citizens and interest groups to petition bills before they are discussed and passed into law, enabling citizens to participate in law making with positive impact.

The LG Acts No. 7 and 8 mandate LGAs to undertake consultations as part of their planning processes. The LG reform manual made it mandatory for all LGAs to conduct stakeholder consultations at various stages of implementing the reform process (URT2000a). All LGAs have for example formed a council Reform Team with representatives from among the councillors, management staff and civil society to supervise the reform process and to advise the LGAs decision-making organs on the vision and mission statements, on strategic development plan of the LGA, on restructuring, outsourcing of non-core functions and on retrenchment and redeployment of staff to attain efficiency and cost effective service delivery. Consultations have also been held in all LGAs in stage III of their reform processes in which about 50 stakeholders are invited to discuss the service delivery situation in the LGAs areas that defines the direction of subsequent reform activities. All 38 LGAs that are in Phase I of the reforms have already held a second much wider consultation with about 100 stakeholders to draw out the strategic plan for the LGA.

 

Consultations are required for annual budget and development planning in LGAs. However, only few pioneering LGAs have fully implemented these consultations because guidelines have only recently been issued. According to the guidelines LGAs are instructed to use the Obstacles and Opportunities to Development (O&OD) planning tool for participatory budgeting, which is a simplified model for making a Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis, that focuses on identifying and exploiting existing opportunities that are available to the community, to overcome major constraints to local development in service delivery, infrastructure or economic development deficiencies. Communities prioritise their problems for budget allocation by the LGAs and identify resources they can contribute to the solutions.

Tanzania prefers Presidential and other Commissions of Enquiry to seek opinions and to reach consensus on issues of national importance. Recent examples include the Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Land Matters, The Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Corruption, the Presidential Commission on Multi-party Democracy, and the Law Reform Commission.

Tanzania’s law enables LGAs to establish service boards to perform any of their functions in a wide range of partnership relationships with CSOs and private sector agencies. The public health management system for example integrates co-management with cost sharing mechanisms, while PEDP approach focuses on joint implementation, with communities co-financing construction and maintenance of primary school facilities

 

The main function and purpose of LGAs is to provide public services to citizens but due to severe resource constraints, LGAs in Africa are unable on their own, to provide adequate services. Stakeholder participation through co-management, cost sharing or joint implementation mechanisms makes it possible to bridge gaps on public resources. In the urban areas rapid urbanization at 5-10% p.a. has created huge tracts of grossly under-served informal settlements (UN, 2000), making urban settlement upgrading amenable to participation, as demonstrated in the Dar es Salaam Urban Community Infrastructure Program (CIP) for Kijitonyama and Tabata settlements (UN Habitat II 1998) and the Hanna Nassif upgrading project (See Box 1), which won the 1998 'Dubai International Award for Best Practice” and received worldwide accolade (UCLAS & NIGP, 2000) respectively. Three major factors contributed to the success of these two projects including property ownership and secure tenure in planned settlement (Kijitonyama, Tabata) and the objective for land regularization and titling in Hana Nassif; the presence of strong democratic SCOs; commitment of substantial government and donor resources to co-finance projects with communities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 














The success of these projects significantly influenced local, municipal and national policy to appreciate the potentially in communities for improving their own situation.

 

 4.10.5 Control, monitoring and evaluation

Experience, as with the cases cited in Box 1 demonstrate how participation creates a sense of ownership, control and the sense of community responsibility on projects. When they contribute their own resources to projects or service delivery, communities are predisposed to exercise greater caution in the use and care of facilities. Stakeholder participation facilitates transparency and the sharing of information among partners, which creates mutual trust between them, and widens the opportunities for constructive feed back of the participating community and beneficiaries to LGAs on project implementation progress and performance or quality of service delivery which, by dint of their presence on site and close association with it, could be crucial for effective project monitoring and evaluation. Tanzania’s commitment to devolve decision-making authority and control over resource allocations and use to the communities creates favourable conditions for public monitoring and evaluation of projects and services.

Following independence in 1961, Tanzania abolished all forms of tribal based traditional leadership in a single-minded pursuit for national unity. Fairly strong traditional systems remain in some rural based tribal communities where they influence civic participation but they play a very limited role in public life in the urban context, though traditional norms still influence social aspects of life and property ownership rights, especially in respect to inheritance. Therefore traditional and indigenous norms play little role in civic participation. Participation in policy-making and budgetary decisions take place around formal government structures. The national language Kiswahili, which every person speaks in Tanzania, facilitates communication and information sharing in the participatory budgeting processes at sub-national entities.

Traditionally the position of women in Tanzania has been low compared to men. Women were not expected to influence the decision-making processes from the domestic to the national levels and these attitudes influence the election and appointment of women to high profile positions and hence limit women’s voices from impacting decision-making and the planning and budgetary processes at all levels. Women constitute more than half of the population in Tanzania but very few of them hold positions in key policy and budgetary decision-making organs. Studies by the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP; 1999) for example, revealed the following situation up to 1999:

·       None of the 8 top positions in the Planning Commission were held by women

·       None of the 6 members of the National Committee for Plan and Budget Guidelines were women

·       Only 2 of the 29 Permanent Secretaries who form the Inter-ministerial technical Committee were women

·       Only 3 0f the 23 Ministers and 4 of the 14 Deputy Ministers in Cabinet were women

·       Only 3 of the 30 members of the Finance and Planning Committee of Parliament were women

 

Realizing that gender imbalances and inequalities prevent society from attaining its full potential for economic, social, and political development, government is in the process of integrating gender issues in planning and budgeting. The national constitution recognizes women‘s right to participate in politics, social and economic life of the country, and provides equal the right for men and women to vote and to stand for election and these rights practised successfully in the 2000 general elections, showing that the environment is conducive for women’s free and equal participation in politics and decision-making. Tanzania’s development vision 2025 regards gender equality and women empowerment as being essential to attain high quality livelihood for all citizens (URT 2000b). Increasing “gender equality and opportunities for women to participate in the leadership of all community, economic, political and cultural activities” is among the eight priority targets of the development vision 2025 (URT 2003). Tanzania’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) identifies gender equality and women empowerment as one of the priority areas of focus. A process is in progress to review the Poverty reduction Strategy (PRS) and the re-examination aims among other things, for more integration of crosscutting issues including gender, disability, and ageing, and for increased grassroots participation in the PRS. Tanzania has ratified the Beijing Platform of Action and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), upholds all other international treaties on women’s rights, and has taken policy and legislative action to implement them.

 

Two main gender policies have for example been formulated, one on Gender and Development Policy and the other on Women Affairs and Management, while 9 other policies on Population; Community Development; Family Development; Youth and Development; Social Welfare; Education and Training; Employment; Civil Service and Water also explicitly focus on gender. At the sub-national level, the law requires of LGAs law to recognize and promote gender awareness in performing their functions. Tanzania formed a Legal Reform Commission to investigate oppressive and discriminative laws for deletion or reform. Thus parliament has passed several laws including the Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act of 1998 to protect women and children from sexual abuse, and the new Land and Village Land Acts of 1999, to ensure women’s equal rights with men in access, ownership and control of land, particularly clan and family land.

 

In practice however, the complex and bureaucratic judicial system that is time consuming and costly derogates progress attained through gender-positive legal reforms. Nevertheless, government is working with NGOs and donors, to educate all citizens on the importance of women owning land and other resources. In this regard TGNP has been pioneering gender budget work since 1997, to advocate for a more participatory and equitable allocation of resources by influencing and transforming planning and budgeting processes to utilize participatory techniques and to take into account the needs of marginalized communities particularly women, poor men and youth through research at national ministries and district levels in selected sectors/institutions (health, education Water and Sanitation, Agriculture, Ministry for Community Development, Gender Affairs and Children; and Regional Administration and Local Government. The research has focused on the main direction of policy development, planning and budgeting processes; main decision-making structures and actors; actual allocation of the resources allocated to and with sectors, and planned and actual outputs. Other strategies include development of lobbying strategies and gender budget tools for parliamentary and public support; capacity development for government agencies and NGO’s on gender as it relates to macroeconomic policies and budgets.

 

Rusimbi (2000) states that such research and its dissemination has contributed towards building skills to analyze the social-political dynamics between men and women at all levels and position in society and raising awareness of the national development actors e.g. parliamentarians, policy makers, planners and Budget Officers, NGOs, Donors and the general public on the deficiencies in democracy and transparency in government policies, program formulation, resource allocation (budgeting processes) and implementation processes.   Most of their work has focused at the national level. As a result of TGNP’s lobbying, one paragraph on gender was included in the 1999-2000 budget guidelines. In 2000-2001 budget guidelines, two paragraphs were included, which mandated that all Ministry, department and agency (MDA) budget submissions be prepared with a gender focus.

 

Tanzania has taken affirmative action to allocate 33% of LG seats and 20% seats in parliament to women, with plans to increase the quota for women in parliament to 30% by the year 2005. One Hon. Sofia Simba, a Tanzanian parliamentarian (MP) on special women seats who is Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Community Development and an elected councillor from Dar es Salaam observes, however, affirmative action to assure women 33% of seats in LGAs has had little impact bringing forth gender issues in LG policy, planning and budgeting largely because they have no common forum and they are not sensitised on gender issues or given skills in advocacy, lobbying and gender analysis. Capacity building is crucial for them to have impact. Women MPs are better organized around the Tanzania Women Parliamentary Association, which enables them develop common a agenda, provides capacity enhancement training and engages with gender oriented CSOs to analyse bills that significantly affect women. In that way, the women MPs have been able to influence legislative decisions, and they are more computer literate than the male counterparts, with each owning a personal computer.

 

The government formed a Ministry of Community Development, Gender Affairs and Children with a view to promote gender equality, and in 2003 it created a fully fledged Gender Affairs Department in the Presidents Office, Public Service Management Unit to ensure hat more women are appointed to top management positions to enhance their participation in government policy and budgetary decision-making, and there are still gaps in empowering women and youth economically. Gender focal points have also been identified in some ministries and institutions, and in the regional and district administrations. A Gender Budget Committee has been created to ensure that sectoral investments respond to the priority needs of both men and women (World Bank, 2000). In practice, however, gender mainstreaming, as a strategy is yet to be fully understood and applied to achieve its full potential of bringing about equality, equity and empowerment of women in the country. Most planners and economists in central and local Government have limited skills on gender mainstreaming: they have to be sensitised and trained on gender planning, analysis and evaluation, andoutside of government,gender advocates need skills to assist them influence macroeconomic policies operational and budgetary decision making at the local government level.