{"id":6622,"date":"2014-12-09T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T07:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africaresearchinstitute.org\/wordpress\/?p=6622"},"modified":"2022-03-17T10:19:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T10:19:30","slug":"donors-dodoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africaresearchinstitute.org\/wordpress\/donors-dodoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Donors and Dodoma: The International Challenge to Tanzania\u2019s Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a constitutional referendum scheduled for April 2015 and a general election due in October, Tanzania is at a crossroads. In the second of a series examining the country\u2019s political landscape at this critical juncture, we consider the adverse consequences for Bunge, Tanzania\u2019s parliament, of the country\u2019s heavy dependence on overseas aid. Find the first instalment here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Parallel Accountability\u2019 & structural distortion<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who have the right to hold our government to account is the parliament of Tanzania\u2026 Why then should this right be taken by civil servants of donor countries? They are a mini-parliament attempting to control our executive, which, in my opinion, is quite wrong.\u201d John Cheyo, 22 October 2014<\/p>\n

\u2018Parallel accountability\u2019 describes the state of affairs arising from a government\u2019s simultaneous responsibility to its citizens \u2013 through elected representatives in parliament \u2013 and accountability to foreign donors financing a significant proportion of the annual budget. Among other things, it fuels a detrimental \u201crivalry between donors and parliament<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

During 2007-11, an average of 33% of Tanzania\u2019s budget <\/ins>(see table, p.62 of 2014-15 Budget<\/a> speech), and as much as 80%<\/a> of the country\u2019s development spending, was provided by international donors. <\/ins>In 2011-13, official development assistance paid for 22% of the budget on average; in 2014-15, aid will still fund a sum equivalent to what the government aims to raise from domestic debt markets. Under these financial circumstances, donor influence over Tanzania is, to a certain extent, inevitable. At a meeting in London this October, parliamentary Budget Committee member and former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) John Cheyo, explained: <\/ins><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the unfortunate parts of being a donor-dependent country. That is why we hope, with revenue coming from the gas and mining sectors<\/a>,<\/ins> we will be in the position where all monies can be in the hands of government, and Parliament will continue to have the responsibility of scrutinising and approving budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is growing recognition among donors and Tanzania\u2019s leadership that the manner in which aid is administered determines the degree of political distortion.<\/p>\n

Aid politics behind closed doors<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his contribution to ARI\u2019s 2008 publication, \u2018A Parliament with Teeth<\/a>\u2019, <\/i>John Cheyo wrote, \u201cthe mere presence of donors in Tanzania has in some way diluted the power of parliament. It has diluted democracy.\u201d At our meeting in October 2014, Cheyo gave the example of a tendency among donors to retract promised funding in response to \u2018misbehaviour\u2019. On these<\/a> occasions pre-emptive actions by donors can undermine, rather than reinforce, the role of parliament in scrutinising the executive and taking appropriate action. As we argued in the first piece in this series<\/a>, Bunge<\/i> has a strong track record of confronting public controversy and holding wayward ministers to account<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The conduct of donors erodes parliamentary power in other ways. Despite donor initiatives to strengthen parliament<\/a>, ODA flows to Tanzania \u2013 as in many other countries \u2013 are discussed and negotiated behind closed doors with the executive. With both donor representatives and government located in Dar es Salaam, Bunge<\/i>, in Dodoma, is too often left out of the loop.<\/p>\n

Cheyo identifies a glaring anomaly in the delivery of aid here. As a member of Tanzania\u2019s delegation to the Accra High Level Forum<\/a> on aid effectiveness in 2008, he left the conference confident that there was broad agreement amongst participants on the need to strengthen national accountability institutions. However, as highlighted by a recent inquiry<\/a> by the UK\u2019s International Development Committee<\/a> into DFID<\/a>\u2019s commitment to parliamentary strengthening, many donors fail to appreciate the potentially counteractive effects <\/a>of the way poverty alleviation and democracy assistance programmes are agreed and delivered.<\/p>\n

Away from General Budget Support <\/strong><\/p>\n

The delivery of donor assistance in Tanzania is changing, as it is elsewhere. General Budget Support (GBS), by which foreign funds are made available to the government to spend as it sees fit, is shrinking<\/a> both as a proportion of annual budget expenditure and of total external assistance. In 2011-12, US$369m was <\/a>pledged as GBS to Tanzania; in 2014-15, the budgeted sum is US$280m.<\/p>\n

In John Cheyo\u2019s view, this is cause for concern. He feels that GBS enables parliament to perform its oversight function better than project finance, which is externally controlled and not subject to parliamentary scrutiny at all. He explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder GBS all the monies from a donor or donors go into the government\u2019s consolidated fund. They are managed by the government of Tanzania. They are declared to parliament, and to the public, in an Appropriation Bill. This process enables an entirely different chain of accountability, which forms part of a more open process.\u201d<\/p>\n

For donors, the impact of GBS is more difficult to track than project aid; from the perspective of parliamentarians, there is a risk that GBS supports an unsatisfactory status quo and artificially \u2013 and unfairly \u2013 strengthens the executive. In Tanzania, some argue<\/a> that GBS is tantamount to supporting corruption.<\/p>\n

Following the creation of the Budget Committee two years ago, Bunge<\/i>\u2019s role in the budgeting process grew. Reducing the proportion of funds dispersed through GBS and increasing the proportion allotted to project finance will constrain parliament\u2019s ability to influence and oversee the disbursement of donor funds. GBS has presented an opportunity for MPs to interact with donors in a way that project finance does not.<\/p>\n

If a move away from GBS \u2013 partly a response to growing international demand for measurable targets \u2013 occasions an increase in short-term project funding<\/a>, it will also compromise financial predictability. This can only hamper longer-term planning by budget-makers, and undermine gains with respect to \u201cownership\u201d of the development agenda.<\/p>\n

Donors and Dodoma: the outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in 2008, the efforts of Cheyo and others to secure a role for parliamentarians in the donor reporting process made him optimistic. Development partners had agreed on the need to share more information with MPs. GBS documents were made accessible to Dodoma. Cheyo thought the challenges of parallel accountability could be solved altogether by routing the process of donor accountability through Bunge<\/i>, an amendment he considered structurally sensible: \u201caccounting officers in government are accountable to parliament.\u201d In October 2014, however, it was clear that his hopes have not been fulfilled. Donor-government relations are still managed in much the same way, substantially bypassing or excluding parliament. MPs were dismayed at the way donors had handled the emerging IPTL scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following allegations that Tanzanian government officials authorised fraudulent payments worth US$124m to private energy company IPTL, a group of 12 donors suspended a total of US$493m<\/a> of general budget support. Assurances from donor representatives that the funds will be released as soon as the Government of Tanzania has responded to the recommendations of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) did little assuage the doubts of parliamentarians regarding the legitimacy of the funding freeze. In October 2014, Budget Committee representatives told us that Bunge<\/i> had not been consulted ahead of the donors\u2019 decision, and were unanimous in depicting the action as premature. In their view, the IPTL affair had not yet been properly investigated and reported upon. Cheyo explained his misgivings about donors attempting to hurry along publication of the CAG\u2019s report: \u201cIf anything, the originators \u2013 the PAC \u2013 can write to the CAG and ask why it has taken so long. If you start interfering with the work of the CAG and prematurely predicting results from the investigation, where is the independence of the auditing body?\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been some progress towards formalisation of Dodoma\u2019s relationship with donors in the wake of the Budget Committee\u2019s creation two years ago. According to Cheyo, \u201ca very interesting interaction between the Budget Committee and the [donor] General Budget Support group\u201d has begun, although the focus on redrafting the constitution this year has proved disruptive and the full potential of the exchange remains unrealised.  Talks between donors and government are still held \u201cbehind closed doors\u201d, says Cheyo; \u201cwe only hear the end result when action has been taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShare the annual report with the Budget Committee\u201d, Cheyo urges Tanzania\u2019s development partners, referring to the yearly review of donor financing convened by the government and development partners. \u201cThey will highlight to [parliament] what the issues are, and we will follow up. That is our job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Future blog posts in this series will examine Tanzania\u2019s response to the IPTL scandal and the potential impact of a new constitution. <\/em><\/p>\n

by Maya Prabhu<\/a>, Communications and Research Associate, Africa Research Institute<\/em><\/p>\n

Home page image: political cartoon from IPP media<\/a>
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Maya Prabhu considers the adverse consequences for Tanzania\u2019s parliament of the country\u2019s heavy dependence on overseas aid as it enters an election year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[226,1007,221,83,85,578,1013,1012,997,1002,249,1014,932,1015,1010,1006,63,995,999,198,1005,84,1011,996,227,722,1009,219,926,1001,1000,1004,215,27,998,1003,203,928,730,712,1008],"class_list":["post-6622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-a-parliament-with-teeth","tag-accra-high-level-forum","tag-africa-research-institute","tag-aid","tag-aid-effectiveness","tag-ari","tag-auditor","tag-bank-of-tanzania","tag-basket-funding","tag-budget-committee","tag-bunge","tag-cag","tag-chadema","tag-controller-and-auditor-general","tag-controversy","tag-dar-es-salaam","tag-democracy","tag-development-partners-group","tag-development-spending","tag-dfid","tag-dodoma","tag-donors","tag-escrow","tag-gbs","tag-general-budget-support","tag-international-development-committee","tag-iptl","tag-john-cheyo","tag-maya-prabhu","tag-oda","tag-overseas-development-assistance","tag-pac","tag-parliament","tag-politics-in-publications","tag-project-funding","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-tanzania","tag-tanzanian-politics","tag-uk","tag-uk-aid","tag-ukaid"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nDonors and Dodoma: The International Challenge to Tanzania\u2019s Parliament - 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