Yes, our ministers are burdensome!

BY EDITOR

28th December 2013

Editorial Cartoon

Two months ago or so, the leadership of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi came out in public to claim that some of its members appointed by President Jakaya Kikwete to the ministerial posts have turned out to be a burden.

The party leadership went a step further to give out names of ministers considered to be poor performers, suggesting to the president to consider replacing them.

But, before the party gave President Kikwete breathing space to decide on whether or not to replace them the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Lands, Natural Resources and Environments under its chairman James Lembeli dropped a ‘bombshell’ in Parliament, costing the political life of four cabinet ministers.
Though it is not worth mentioning here names of ministers considered to be a burden to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi and its government such politicians were not touched by Lembeli’s report.
In that sense such ministers are still clinging on to the powers, not knowing about their fate in the looming cabinet reshuffle.

Though it is agreeable that there are some ministers who indeed have been displaying a dismal performance in their portfolios it is also an undisputable fact that the governance system that this country has contributes a lot to not only  the ministers’ performances  but also to all ranks of leaders within the government.

For those with fresh memory will remember that the same Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism triggered the reshuffle carried out in May last year whereby former Minister Ezekiel Maige was shown an exit door. Of course there were other ministers who were dropped in the reshuffle.

Factors that prompted the reshuffle were   irresponsibility of some ministers that resulted in the country losing billions of shillings through malpractices, including embezzlement and outright theft.

Much as it may be agued one may conclude that the country needs to revisit its governance system and structures. One may also ask a question that why every time the government comes up with certain programme or initiative its implementation becomes an uphill task?

It has been a common practice that when the government issues certain directives their enforcement is always engulfed with problems. Researchers  claim that implementation problem of any programme or initiative occurs when the desired result on the target beneficiaries is not achieved and this is a common practice in our country.

In our country when the government comes up with any programme or initiative to be implemented most implementers would exercise considerable discretion in the course of implementing it  because of either their independence from their nominal superiors who came up with a programme   or as a result of the complexity of the initiative itself.

In most cases the way implementors exercise their discretion depends, to a large extent, on their disposition toward the programme.Therefore, the level of success will depend on how the implementors see the programme or the initiative as affecting their organizational and personal interests. This is what exactly happened with Operesheni  Tokomeza Ujangili ( Anti-poaching operation).

Unless we revisit the country’s governance system we should not expect miracles in the performance of ministers even if we bring angels into the cabinet.
 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN