Crime should not pay, but honest work must

A number of other public holidays, for Tanzania these including Uhuru Day and (Zanzibar’s) Mapinduzi Day, also commonly come with one form of bonus or another.

On some of these occasions, those targeted end up with an assortment of gifts such as foodstuffs, drinks, clothes and footwear, books and stationery as well as hard cash.

There also beneficiaries who earn presidential pardon and therefore soon shed the prisoner tag to enjoy a new lease of civilian life. And who can’t tell the difference between life in jail and life in freedom – in the happy midst of one’s loved ones?

So, whether those at the benefiting end or any other people see these gestures translating into drops of mercy or showers of blessings, these would ordinarily be hugely touching and indelibly memorable interventions.

Anyone who has been at an orphanage, in prison, in a hospital casualty ward or in a school for children with special needs knows and appreciates the vital importance of chipping in with the kind of assistance we are talking about.

Yet, surprise, surprise, it is not always that people behave as compassionately as this whenever the need to do arises. Rather, there are numerous cases of some behaving out and out to the contrary even when they are legally and otherwise supposed to demonstrate love and kindness to the needy.

This is neither exaggeration nor distortion. For instance, there was time when some institutions registered as centres to help bail out orphans or people living with HIV and Aids from misery reneged on their obligations and ended up benefiting the very people who had founded them.

There have also been reports, not very few or flimsy, of ‘special needs’ learning institutions that spring to life and live up to expectations only when there are impending inspection tours by donors only to revert to their usual – miserable – state soon after the visits are over.

If these institutions have really registered with bona fide state agencies and are therefore supposed to live by laid down requirements, but they fall short of doing so, why is it that they are not taken to task as soon as they refuse or fail to toe the official line?

The government should plan to deal with those errant institutions possibly by borrowing a leaf from what the Higher Education Students Loans Board is currently busy doing – that is, checking years-old records as it moves to conclusively sorting out cases of defaulting on repayment of funds.

It should not matter how rich, powerful or influential a particular institution is or whether it misbehaved a decade ago, is no longer in business or has since crumbled altogether.

Such thorough screening and auditing should be conducted that not even a single offender is skipped or spared. It might take as long as the exposure of phantom workers in the civil service has taken, but doing it would be a worthy cause.

Meanwhile, it should be the other way round for those institution proved to have implemented to satisfaction whatever projects they had lined up for themselves. They will not come in a negligibly low number, we can almost bet, and all deserve a pat on the back for work well done.

The moral here will be: An honest day’s work must pay; crime doesn’t pay. And that is as it should be.