Let us help make 2017 a truly prosperous year

acquaintances and strangers you have met since the first second of 2017, and the number could be astonishingly big.

Really and truly, if you have been reading The Guardian often or regularly, then this is not your first year to receive such sweet wishes. Nor is it the first time you have sent the same to friends and foes alike as it happens in this age of social media.

Therefore, the question is not whether you have received or sent any New Year wishes. Rather, it is whether you made any positive steps towards enhancing your personal advancement and prosperity or as much with respect to your family and the nation.

If you are asked to enumerate any tangible positive things you have done since January 1, 2016, will you proudly come out in the open, clear your throat and tell a tale interrupted only by cheers and nods from your audience?

If you have some such sweet stuff to say, then congratulations! But if you don’t see much of that, then it is high time you thought hard and long about why you receive and send ‘Happy and prosperous New Near’ messages at all.

For, if at the end of the year nothing changes for the better, then it amounts to a waste of space and time on your part.

As a nation, Tanzanians have much cause to say 2016 was a momentous year. It started with a new head of state – President Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli –quickly making headlines here at home and abroad with his unique leadership style.

The public spending cuts, the weeding out of ‘ghost workers and non-performers from the public service, and the aggressive collection of taxes are but a few of the areas where the new government has made its presence most noticeably felt.

Many well-meaning Tanzanians will agree that the government has done a lot to restore sanity in the public service. One of the most conspicuous changes made is the way police officers conduct themselves. The traffic officer will now stop the motorist, explain the offence, then issue a ticket (for payment of a specified fine) without any ‘negotiation’. It seldom went that way before.

But some people say the speed is too fast. They argue that the purge in the public service is instilling a pervasive sense of fear across because at times people get edged out without enjoying the benefits the proverbial principle of natural justice is expected to offer – that is, the right to be heard, to put up their case before judgment is given.

The much contested but recently enacted Media Services Act, Cybercrimes Act, Statistics Act and Access to Information Act all of 2015 are, by definition, now part of our legal system.
These pieces of legislations attracted fierce criticism from quarters, the argument being that they give the state machinery excessive powers to trample upon basic human rights.

In sum, we have made handsome strides in some areas but have a lot of improvement to make on many scores. Both individually and collectively, we have a role to play to make 2017 a truly prosperous year.