<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/donors-dodoma/> Donors and
Dodoma The International Challenge to Tanzania's Parliament
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/2014/12/09/> 09 Dec 2014
With a constitutional referendum scheduled for April 2015 and a general
election due in October, Tanzania is at a crossroads. In the second of a
series examining the country's political landscape at this critical
juncture, we consider the adverse consequences for Bunge, Tanzania's
parliament, of the country's heavy dependence on overseas aid. Find the
first instalment
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/tanzanian-politics-crossroads/>
here.
'Parallel Accountability' & structural distortion
"The people who have the right to hold our government to account is the
parliament of Tanzania. Why then should this right be taken by civil
servants of donor countries? They are a mini-parliament attempting to
control our executive, which, in my opinion, is quite wrong." John Cheyo, 22
October 2014
'Parallel accountability' describes the state of affairs arising from a
government's simultaneous responsibility to its citizens - through elected
representatives in parliament - and accountability to foreign donors
financing a significant proportion of the annual budget. Among other things,
it fuels a detrimental "
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/bunge-leny
e-meno-a-parliament-with-teeth-for-tanzania-2/> rivalry between donors and
parliament."
During 2007-11, an average of 33% of Tanzania's budget (see table, p.62 of
<
http://www.mof.go.tz/mofdocs/msemaji/English%20Budget%20speech%20%20MOF%202
014.pdf> 2014-15 Budget speech),
<
http://www.aideffectiveness.org/Country-Tanzania.html> and as much as 80%
of the country's development spending, was provided by international donors.
In 2011-13, official development assistance paid for 22% of the budget on
average; in 2014-15, aid will still fund a sum equivalent to what the
government aims to raise from domestic debt markets. Under these financial
circumstances, donor influence over Tanzania is, to a certain extent,
inevitable. At a meeting in London this October, parliamentary Budget
Committee member and former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)
John Cheyo, explained:
"It's one of the unfortunate parts of being a donor-dependent country. That
is why we hope,
<
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Top-Tanzania-officials-arrested-in
-row-over-oil--gas-contracts/-/2560/2510294/-/item/0/-/12r67bx/-/index.html>
with revenue coming from the gas and mining sectors, we will be in the
position where all monies can be in the hands of government, and Parliament
will continue to have the responsibility of scrutinising and approving
budgets."
There is growing recognition among donors and Tanzania's leadership that the
manner in which aid is administered determines the degree of political
distortion.
Aid politics behind closed doors
In his contribution to ARI's 2008 publication, '
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/bunge-leny
e-meno-a-parliament-with-teeth-for-tanzania-2/> A Parliament with Teeth',
John Cheyo wrote, "the mere presence of donors in Tanzania has in some way
diluted the power of parliament. It has diluted democracy." At our meeting
in October 2014, Cheyo gave the example of a tendency among donors to
retract promised funding in response to 'misbehaviour'. On
<
http://www.dw.de/donors-freeze-aid-to-tanzania/a-17999275> these occasions
pre-emptive actions by donors can undermine, rather than reinforce, the role
of parliament in scrutinising the executive and taking appropriate action.
As we argued in the
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/tanzanian-politics-crossroads/>
first piece in this series, Bunge has a strong track record of confronting
public controversy and
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7232141.stm> holding wayward
ministers to account.
The conduct of donors erodes parliamentary power in other ways. Despite
donor initiatives to
<
http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/using-aid-to-strengthen-parliaments-fix-the-car-
or-worry-about-the-driver/> strengthen parliament, ODA flows to Tanzania -
as in many other countries - are discussed and negotiated behind closed
doors with the executive. With both donor representatives and government
located in Dar es Salaam, Bunge, in Dodoma, is too often left out of the
loop.
Cheyo identifies a glaring anomaly in the delivery of aid here. As a member
of Tanzania's delegation to
<
http://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/theaccrahighlevelforumhlf3andtheaccra
agendaforaction.htm> the Accra High Level Forum on aid effectiveness in
2008, he left the conference confident that there was broad agreement
amongst participants on the need to strengthen national accountability
institutions. However, as highlighted by a
<
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/
international-development-committee/news/parliamentary-strengthening-tors-/>
recent inquiry by the UK's
<
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/
international-development-committee/news/parliamentary-strengthening-tors-/>
International Development Committee into
<
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-de
velopment> DFID's commitment to parliamentary strengthening, many donors
fail to appreciate the
<
http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/11/06/aiding-democracy-in-africa-critical
-assessment/gr3e?reloadFlag=1> potentially counteractive effects of the way
poverty alleviation and democracy assistance programmes are agreed and
delivered.
Away from General Budget Support
The delivery of donor assistance in Tanzania is changing, as it is
elsewhere. General Budget Support (GBS), by which foreign funds are made
available to the government to spend as it sees fit,
<
http://www.policyforum-tz.org/sites/default/files/DonorMoneyinthebudget.pdf
> is shrinking both as a proportion of annual budget expenditure and of
total external assistance. In
<
http://www.tzdpg.or.tz/dpg-website/sector-groups/other-groups/httpwwwtzdpgo
rtzbudgetsupport/newpage/disbursements.html> 2011-12, US$369m was pledged as
GBS to Tanzania; in 2014-15, the budgeted sum is US$280m.
In John Cheyo's view, this is cause for concern. He feels that GBS enables
parliament to perform its oversight function better than project finance,
which is externally controlled and not subject to parliamentary scrutiny at
all. He explains:
"Under GBS all the monies from a donor or donors go into the government's
consolidated fund. They are managed by the government of Tanzania. They are
declared to parliament, and to the public, in an Appropriation Bill. This
process enables an entirely different chain of accountability, which forms
part of a more open process."
For donors, the impact of GBS is more difficult to track than project aid;
from the perspective of parliamentarians, there is a risk that GBS supports
an unsatisfactory status quo and artificially - and unfairly - strengthens
the executive. In Tanzania,
<
http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2012/en_GB/wp2012-037/
> some argue that GBS is tantamount to supporting corruption.
Following the creation of the Budget Committee two years ago, Bunge's role
in the budgeting process grew. Reducing the proportion of funds dispersed
through GBS and increasing the proportion allotted to project finance will
constrain parliament's ability to influence and oversee the disbursement of
donor funds. GBS has presented an opportunity for MPs to interact with
donors in a way that project finance does not.
If a move away from GBS - partly a response to growing international demand
for measurable targets - occasions an
<
http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/using-aid-to-strengthen-parliaments-fix-the-car-
or-worry-about-the-driver/> increase in short-term project funding, it will
also compromise financial predictability. This can only hamper longer-term
planning by budget-makers, and undermine gains with respect to "ownership"
of the development agenda.
Donors and Dodoma: the outlook
Back in 2008, the efforts of Cheyo and others to secure a role for
parliamentarians in the donor reporting process made him optimistic.
Development partners had agreed on the need to share more information with
MPs. GBS documents were made accessible to Dodoma. Cheyo thought the
challenges of parallel accountability could be solved altogether by routing
the process of donor accountability through Bunge, an amendment he
considered structurally sensible: "accounting officers in government are
accountable to parliament." In October 2014, however, it was clear that his
hopes have not been fulfilled. Donor-government relations are still managed
in much the same way, substantially bypassing or excluding parliament. MPs
were dismayed at the way donors had handled the
<
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/28/tanzania-prime-mi
nister-mizengo-pinda-alleged-fraudulent-payments-energy-contracts> emerging
IPTL scandal.
Following allegations that Tanzanian government officials authorised
fraudulent payments worth US$124m to private energy company IPTL, a group of
12 donors <
http://www.dw.de/donors-freeze-aid-to-tanzania/a-17999275>
suspended a total of US$493m of general budget support. Assurances from
donor representatives that the funds will be released as soon as the
Government of Tanzania has responded to the recommendations of the
Controller and Auditor General (CAG) did little assuage the doubts of
parliamentarians regarding the legitimacy of the funding freeze. In October
2014, Budget Committee representatives told us that Bunge had not been
consulted ahead of the donors' decision, and were unanimous in depicting the
action as premature. In their view, the IPTL affair had not yet been
properly investigated and reported upon. Cheyo explained his misgivings
about donors attempting to hurry along publication of the CAG's report: "If
anything, the originators - the PAC - can write to the CAG and ask why it
has taken so long. If you start interfering with the work of the CAG and
prematurely predicting results from the investigation, where is the
independence of the auditing body?"
There has been some progress towards formalisation of Dodoma's relationship
with donors in the wake of the Budget Committee's creation two years ago.
According to Cheyo, "a very interesting interaction between the Budget
Committee and the [donor] General Budget Support group" has begun, although
the focus on redrafting the constitution this year has proved disruptive and
the full potential of the exchange remains unrealised. Talks between donors
and government are still held "behind closed doors", says Cheyo; "we only
hear the end result when action has been taken."
"Share the annual report with the Budget Committee", Cheyo urges Tanzania's
development partners, referring to the yearly review of donor financing
convened by the government and development partners. "They will highlight to
[parliament] what the issues are, and we will follow up. That is our job."
Future blog posts in this series will examine Tanzania's response to the
IPTL scandal and the potential impact of a new constitution.
by
<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/maya-prabhu-communications-and-resea
rch-associate/> Maya Prabhu, Communications and Research Associate, Africa
Research Institute
Read Part one below:
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/tanzanian-politics-crossroads/
Received on Tue Dec 09 2014 - 13:01:44 EST