Dar es Salaam-based political and social commentator
What you need to know:
Once again, the media will take the flak for something the politicians created, who are busy catching agents while exonerating their principals.
When does a non-existent problem become a problem? The answer, it seems, is when the media creates it.
We have heard more than our fill of this conventional wisdom, made even more forcible by the arrival on the world stage of one Donald Trump, who is fast becoming the champion of this gem of philosophy.
But it is not limited to the confines of the White House, or to the outbursts of the American president who is fighting for his political life over things his campaign may or may not have done with the Russians during last year’s presidential campaign. That will be decided in the fullness of time after investigations have been concluded one way or the other.
Closer to home, we have been having media issues of our own, and as usual they are not very different than the ones obtaining in Washington. The media simply has to learn not to print or broadcast stories they have not been authorised to publish, and not to make allusions where allusions were not meant to be made.
Public praise
The story is quite interesting. President John Pombe Magufuli has been on his crusade to drive home the point that mining companies that have been working in Tanzania have been ripping off the country, mainly by under-declaring the true worth of what they take out of the country. This stance by the president has won him much praise and support from sections of the public who see him as a liberator on the national economic front.
In his last public exposé of this crusade, he called a big meeting at State House during which he received a report by a team he had commissioned to follow up on the issues pertaining to Tanzania being perennially short-changed by the big mining corporates. This report, unlike another one before it, named names of government officers who are accused of having colluded with the alleged looters.
These were top officials, including ministers, attorneys general, commissioners, directors and others who served under the two preceding presidencies, that is under Jakaya Kikwete, and, before him, Benjamin Mkapa.
Just a suggestion
A number of media outlets latched onto the story, suggesting that the two former presidents be taken to task for their role in the loss of vast sums of money through the foreign companies.
It is that suggestion by the media that Kikwete and Mkapa be held responsible that seemed to anger State House. A statement from the president’s office castigated these media outlets for attributing to the president things he had not said, and Information Minister Harrison Mwakyembe promptly banned one paper for two years.
Which is interesting. It is true that Magufuli had said in the past that he would not inconvenience any of those who went before him for things they may or may not have done during their stints in office, preferring to “let them rest.”
Trouble is, while he wants his predecessors to “rest,” Magufuli does not extend the same courtesy to their top lieutenants. He has singled them out, exposed them to public opprobrium by suggesting that the security agencies investigate them thoroughly to find out the extent of their collusion with those who have milked our country dry.
Media takes the flak
I may not be well schooled in the ways of government, but I suppose that those who did what they did (if indeed that is what they did), did so at the behest of their presidents, and maybe also as a result of decisions by the Cabinet under the chairmanship of the respective presidents. How else?
I would be loath to think that a minister, attorney-general, commissioner or director could just up and grant such succulent concessions under such sweetheart deals without the knowledge and say-so of his principal, the president. If that were so, we would all of us have reason to be afraid, very afraid indeed. What kind of government would that be?
I know our government sometimes lets into its offices characters who look and sound like they are fresh escapees from Alcatraz, but I also think that if anyone did anything that their bosses really disapproved of, they would be shown the door immediately. They were not.
Once again, the media will take the flak for something the politicians created, those who signed those contracts and those who are busy catching agents while exonerating their principals.
Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam.
