Taxpayers’ sweat? Look, guys, you can’t have your radar and eat it too

Some things will simply not go away, no matter what the authorities try to do to make people forget about them.

One such thing is the so-called radar question, wherein a British military contractor sold Tanzania surveillance equipment at a price more than twice its market value.

The contractor, British Aerospace Engineering, has somehow managed to extricate itself from a judicial process that could have led to criminal prosecution by apologising for trivia and promising to give the “surplus” monies back to Tanzania. Apparently their only infraction is — don’t laugh — that they had done bad maths in calculating the price.

Now a wrangle is developing around that cash and who it should go to, with the government claiming it should be returned to the Treasury as it is “taxpayers’ sweat” and the British authorities seemingly reluctant to hand over the dough to an absentminded government that apparently cannot be trusted with its own money.

One may indeed ask oneself whether the government has any right to claim money that it has all along kept mum about, even as the debate raged both in Tanzania and in Britain.

Where was the Tanzania government when British and Tanzanian Members of Parliament and civil society activists raised a hue and cry over the swindle, demanding that it be stopped?

It would have taken extreme levels of deafness not to hear the noisy “radar” arguments as British minister Clare Short spoke bitterly on behalf of the Tanzanian poor while premier Tony Blair defended the jobs of a handful of British workers employed by the contractor.

You could almost hear Tony saying to Clare, “Look, sweetie, don’t pretend to love these Africans more than they seem capable of loving themselves. Why should our workers lose their jobs just because we want to be do-gooders with people whose government couldn’t care less about them?”

It was also around this time that a Tanzanian minister declared in parliament that a not dissimilar purchase would be made even if it meant that Tanzanians would have to “eat grass.”

As the minister did not look or sound drunk, a positively disposed commentator concluded that what he had meant was “eat salad and greens,” since in Kiswahili “majani” can also mean “vegetables.”

So, how does a government that demonstrated such nonchalance and verbal extravagance during the whole debate now all of a sudden change tack and claim any money from this sinister deal?

It has not, at any time since the saga began unfolding, shown any concern for its “taxpayers’ sweat.” It cannot have the locus requisite for it to stake a claim.

The internal logic of graft dictates that those involved in it will cover up for each other. Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

If a government minister had raised his voice and joined Clare Short in demanding that the radar sale be scrapped, he would have curtailed a colleague’s “eating” and could expect the aggrieved colleague to return the favour some day.

But by protecting the colleague’s “eating,” the government in effect eschewed any right to later demand compensation arising out of any resolution of a crisis it had not recognised in the first place.
The present claim by the government is informed by an ill-considered attempt to save face, a faulty memory or a feeling of disjointedness, a belief in “it wasn’t me.”

There exist many things that can undermine the credibility of a government, and one of them is appearing ridiculous, making no sense, even though ridicule never killed anyone and making no sense is a cultural thing with Africans.

Apart from keeping mum as it had during the debate, the Tanzania government could have redeemed itself by stepping in energetically, apprehended the handful of individuals involved in the scam and then, only then, demanded that the compensation monies be paid to the Treasury.

But then that would be going against the grain, as per our internal logic above.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair has rediscovered God, and is all a-preaching about a certain morality, and Tanzanian civil society, which wants the “radar” money, has found a new heroine, the formidable Clare Short, whom they now want to honour.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is a political commentator and civil society activist based in Dar es Salaam. [email protected]