MY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT JOHN POMBE MAGUFULI

Mr. Deogratius Kilawe

Dear President John Pombe Magufuli,

Greetings of Peace!

It has been more than 210 days since you have been elected to become the 5^th president of Tanzania. Since then a lot of things have been seen by different people in a different perspectives and different interests. Mr. President I sincerely congratulate you for being elected as the president of Tanzania who has a great passion to transform Tanzania into Middle class economy status by 2025, in line with our vision 2025 which was initiated by Our President HE. Benjamin Mkapa when he came into power in 1995-2005. I am writing this letter here in South Africa Illovo where I came to relax and get energy to write this important letter to you and our nation.

     Mr President you came into power in this period of 4^th Industrial revolution internet run every things in short we call it internet of things, in which technology can connect with anything. However our nation has not yet seen the totality of the 2^nd Industrial revolution not to mention the 3^rd and the current 4^th Industrial revolution. What I have heard from you during your campaign is you want Tanzania of Industries which falls under the 2^nd and 3^rd   Industrial revolution and is good for now because 3^rd Industrial revolution is a very important stage so that as a nation we can enter into the 4^th industrial revolution with confidence and in a practical way rather than what we have now. As for now we have a lot of IT guys in our nation but a lot of things they invent are not practical in our land because we haven’t utilized the 3^rd stage of industrial revolution. I would like to briefly explain here as to what I do mean when I say 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4^th Industrial revolution; The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second one used electric power to create mass production. The Third one used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

Mr. President I do not aim at discouraging or encouraging you but rather to give out an honest opinion of what I think is right, it is true that you have a very strong influence among low income people and poor people of Tanzania and other nations in Africa. This is the majority group of people in many Africa nations, and they can accept anything but we cannot ignore to consider and give the same attention to the elite groups of business community, political community, religious group and other elite members. This is very important because these groups have a strong influence on the low income and poor people in one way or another so it is wise for a leader to consider their interests too. As for now there is no doubt that you are one of the greatest   African presidents who mean nothing but serious business.

Here is my suggestion as to what can be done to transform our nation rapidly:

1.      My President , Our main problem is financial freedom.  Most of people here in Tanzania are not economically free, the reality is we have more than 5600  USD millionaires in our nation but among them we only have less than 950 who are from the  black indigenous community, the remaining  ones are of the origin of other communities to include Indians, Chinese, Arab , white people and fellow black Africans. Mr. President this figure is really disturbing my mind as  we have  more than 50 million citizens but only black 950 of them are rich? Who make this decision? It’s very simple our own brothers and sister in decision making authority of the tender board. My request Mr. President is to come up with black empowerment program so that we can increase number of black USD millionaires, we are not happy to see all big towers in the city which do  not belong to the majority citizen. I will give you an example of what’s happening in Tanzania now. More than  96%  of the C.E.Os of big companies here at home are non-Tanzanians and remaining 4% are local Tanzania for big companies which they have invested very big money in, for our nation. In this kind of situation even if you promote entrepreneurship it’s very difficult to materialize because the one who dictate the economy are non-Tanzanians, at the end of the day all tenders go to foreigners and producing local millionaires will slow down due to the fact that decision makers and people who hold important data and information about the future of Tanzania are not locals. Mr. President the main problem here is our system we cannot produce leaders for big companies in Tanzania because we don’t have a proper system and plan as nation and as a nation we need to spend MORE MONEY on human capital development  otherwise we will end up being slaves in our own nation. This is because it will not only kill entrepreneurship but also foreigners can easily to lie in tax information to our government.

2.      Encourage and promote Tanzanians to go outside our nations and start retail business

 If Tanzania wants to become an industrialized country we can achieve by sending out our people outside Tanzania so that they can start retail business with or without government support. The aim of this is to promote industrialization these people who are going out our nation will buy and order products from Tanzania and sell in the country where they live. Automatically our nation will start exporting in large quantities and production will go up as well as revenues and employment rate. Nations like India and China they have plenty of retailers around the world who automatically promote industrialization in India and China, even when we go back in our history UK,GERMAN ,SPAIN and others used to send out people outside so that they promote industrialized in their nations back home the same issue we can do it here in Tanzania so that we can achieve our dream to become industrialized nation.

3.      Promote Intra-trade between Tanzanians and between other  African countries

INTRA-TRADE BETWEEN AFRICANS: it complicates regional integration and is a primary reason why there is low intra-regional trade, which is between 10% and 12% of Africa’s total trade. Why? Because of Poor infrastructure,sophisticated protectionism policy beyond commitments. HOW ABOUT INTRA TRADE BETWEEN EUROPE? The rate is more than 84% currently and this enables EU members to keep profit within Europe more than €2800 Billion in 2013. Mr. President it is obvious that if we promote intra-trade between ourselves by practice we will keep profit and all revenues in our land. Let’s not look at the quality of our products produced by Tanzanians or Africans, other nations like India they started at the same point where we are today and letter quality started to improve after their business received more revenue  from the their government  to promote their locally made products. In the year TATA started their government decided to buy all cars from them even though the quality was very poor but after two years TATA’s revenues increased and they started improving quality and investing much in research and development. The same we can do it here in Tanzania let’s give local traders tenders and after they get money they will improve on quality as they produce more products.

4.      Formation of Ministry of Small Business and entrepreneurship in Tanzania

Mr. President your dream is to have Tanzania of Industries [3^rd  and 4^th  Industrial revolution] how are we going to achieve this? Currently we have ministry of trade which deals with both small businesses and large businesses, this situation obviously  add more problems to the existing problem, because small businesses will be ignored and big businesses will be given more attention by the ministry. I would suggest you open another ministry which will deals with these small businesses. Currently there are 3.1 million small and medium businesses in Tanzania owned by 2.7 million people. 54% of these businesses are in rural areas and women own 54%. Major sectors-Trade (55%), Services (30%) and Manufacturing (14%). According to statistics only 3.9% of all small businesses were formally registered under the Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA); of those unregistered, 96.4% were micro businesses, and 84.4% were classified as small businesses. Only 44.7% of small business owners reported that they kept financial records. Mr. President small business  face a lot of problems like  Financial illiteracy, lack of collateral, lack of record keeping, informality, banks take longer time to process the loan, strict regulations and lack of proper products for small businesses .As you stated in your campaigns you want to reduce poverty and industrialize Tanzania, this will be possible through forming a special ministry which focuses on this sector of small businesses so that they become big companies and this will help in understanding and solving problems of small business in Tanzania.

5.      Ban the right to issue citizenship to non citizens;

Let it be like the United Arab of Emirates where everyone is welcome to come here work, live and stay on vacation but no one will get the right to become a citizenship of Tanzania. People misuse this issue and till today I didn’t see the tangible benefits of people who apply to become citizens of Tanzania. After they receive this right we can just cross check what they are bringing  to our nation? Nothing. Rather if you research they are the ones who are benefiting instead of our nation.

6.      Separation of two system Business and politics systems

Mr. President I hope  you will understand very quickly because we are confused as nation to see the same person is a businessman and at the same time is a politician ie Member of Parliament, how? and why? This isn’t fair in business if your competitor is also a decision maker? What about serving people after election? No one can serve two lords at the same time in the world, we all have 24hours ,so if  that is truth how do these ministers and MP’s who at the same time run their private businesses can dedicate their time to the citizens? And how about their efficiency? And that is why we see they use too much media to cover their weakness by doing a lot of PR to spread propaganda that they work hard and good for their people. Mr. President I request to separate this issue, let it be if you decide to become a businessmen/woman let it be or if you decide to become a politician let it be but you cannot  be both otherwise you will break a law of Republic of Tanzania .

7.      Education and Quality of our citizens

Mr. President the level of development of any nation is related to the level of quality of people who are in that nation. Mr. President as nation we have low level of development because of low quality human beings who are in our land while other nations are serious to produce quality people. Two years ago I told President Kikwete he can build all good infrastructures he want but after two years all of them will varnish and continue to circle into the same game of ignorance, and it’s good we have Kigamboni bridge ,DART, more roads but for quality of human capital we have all of these will varnish if we didn’t take serious measure to invest in improving quality of human beings we have in our nation. This issue Mr. president is URGENT not something to wait for Bunge and other issues to approve. What can you do Mr President on this? Instead of continuing to build a lot of infrustures first improve the quality of human beings in our land and the rest will be history because the best people will build and attract finance for infrustructures and development of our nations and also local people will start control our economy for our own benefits.

Mr. President currently in South Africa young people age between 15-35 years old are less skilled and equipped compare to their parents what does this imply? This is regression for young people and I can tell you we have the same  situation though I don’t have data but it look similar to Tanzania, so if your generation Mr. John Magufuli is more competent than our generation then what will happen to our upcoming generation? This situation can be called  things fall apart?

8.      Gold as medium of Exchange no more notes in Tanzania and EAC

For any federation to flourish they need to do business to each other for each part to be happy, this is where medium of exchange comes into play, way back people used to do barter trade but due to influence from spiritual society and other groups gold came as a solution and become a medium of exchange till 18^th  when money replaced Gold as a medium of exchange, but till today money seem as not effective medium of exchange because it’s seem to favor those who introduced it in the world, only USA and European nations plus UK they are on the safe side what about others?

I have some reasons Mr President to advise you why we need Gold as medium of exchange and stopping using money:

1.      Mr. President Africa is full of gold everywhere you go and this is our only competitive advantage in this world of Babylon , where African has been exploited too much through use of money as a medium of exchange.

2.      People are too tied to still continue trading using Tsh they want USD, Pound or Euro comes from those who make this decision of introducing money as medium of exchange? For what reason? Is it for African benefit? NO NO NO Mr President It will reach a point where some people will start doing business through barter system because they see no one is taking action. The time is now Mr. President to take action.

3.      Gold is not a man-made system, but the other system is man made for the benefit of the people who initiated that system. Gold we dig it from the surface whereby God blesses your location according to his wish. But since we started using money (Man-made system) it resulted into a lot of problems which need God’s blessing to sort it out like the economy in crisis etc.

4.      Mr. President gold is portable and can be readily transported from place for exchange in trade.

Mr. President, I have plenty of information and ideas to share, many of which cannot be adequately elaborated in a letter as short as this. It will be my distinct pleasure to one day have coffee with you at the statehouse and talk at length and greater depth.

Yours sincerely,

Deogratius Kilawe