In media reports on the move announced by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa on Wednesday, some confusion was evident between the ‘fake certificates’ removals and the issue of ‘ghost workers’, the latter an altogether different sphere of concern.
In the former context the issue concerns poorly qualified real employees, while in the latter numerous bureaucrats and at times members of the public swindle the State through fake salaries.
Admittedly, reinstating thousands of civil servants who were found to have cheated on their qualifications looks like abetting a wrong, but there are other parameters worth considering.
Former president Benjamin Mkapa had a special liking for a maxim commonly used in diplomacy: ‘it takes two to tango’. The suggestion here is that the government has merely owned up that these people were employed and were working to the satisfaction of their employers and heads of department.
To say that the certificates of those ‘cornered’ and chucked out were false is one thing, while to accept that they were capable of doing the work assigned is another.
Were this matter to be put to legal debate, it could have zeroed in on whether the employees in question delivered on their official duties and thus could keep the jobs except for unexpected intrusion of certificates checking.
One can’t say they had no case to answer, as employment is tied up with qualifications so as to get the best people for the jobs.
But a broad section of the labour movement thought they were unjustly treated. They pleaded; the president listened, and on balance the government is compelled to listen to all quarters of public needs.
Addressing delegates at the Tanzania Local Government Workers Union (TALGWU) annual general meeting, the prime minister pointed out that the government has paid arrears amounting to 176bn/- to retired teachers.
These could be payments touched upon during this year’s May Day celebrations, including the president’s promise to work on those issues, and now the government has taken concrete action.
This gesture of “welcoming back home” civil servants axed earlier as well as hefty payments made to retired teachers will have its pluses and minuses. Instituting keen reforms will help the nation – the government, in particular – see how things work out in the years ahead.
When the government is doing less commerce and there are many corporate bodies, it will need more taxes and hire more teachers, nurses, medical doctors and even law enforcers.
Recent statistics showed huge gaps in the number of medical caregivers needed countrywide and what we have at present, even as the government moved to reverse the tide in the new financial year.
The point here is that awareness and mobilisation levels are such that each sphere of public welfare is capable of upsetting cohesion at the political level if not addressed as appropriate.
This is why the government needs to do the most it can to put its act together much more assertively but as justifiably so as to end with much higher revenue but without having this run at the expense of public welfare.
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