Dar es Salaam. Perhaps police in Tanzania should just put their swords back in their sheaths and avoid using brutal means to prevent what they fear to be the replication of youth-led anti-government protests, as new polls released Tuesday show that most people in the country are satisfied with its direction, unlike their colleagues in the East African region.
The non-governmental organisation Twaweza East Africa published the latest edition of its Sauti za Wananchi opinion polls on Tuesday titled A Compendium of Ten Years of Sauti za Wananchi: The Opinions and Experiences of Citizens of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Presentations and panel discussions accompanied the launching event in Dar es Salaam.
The polls, which involved five baseline surveys and 126 mobile phone survey rounds between 2013 and 2023, reveal that, unlike their colleagues in Kenya and Uganda, many Tanzanians express a higher level of satisfaction on matters such as unemployment and inflation, which are credited with causing ongoing protests in Kenya.
The polls, representing an estimated 74,000 hours of interviews, also show that Tanzanians are more likely than Kenyans or Ugandans to agree that their country has a stable political environment conducive to business prosperity, that their country’s current economic conditions are favourable for business, and that their government is creating exciting opportunities for small businesses.
While most Kenyans and Ugandans feel that their countries are heading in the wrong direction, 69 per cent of Tanzanians expressed feelings that their country was going in the right direction, according to data Twaweza collected in the country two months ago and revealed during Tuesday’s event.
Police crackdown
The release of the findings coincided with the police’s announcement that they have released 520 members and officials from the opposition party CHADEMA that authorities arrested on Sunday and Monday to prevent the planned commemoration of the 2024 International Youth Day in Mbeya that police claim the cadres wanted to use as a cover to launch anti-government protests in the country.
Police cited alleged statements by the party’s high-ranking officials that they would replicate what Kenyans were doing: organising protests against the high cost of living, corruption, and public accountability. The police crackdown that ensued attracted widespread condemnation from local and international human rights organisations, which helped secure the release of the detainees.
The findings also come at a time when some people have been questioning why the Tanzanian youth have failed to join the bandwagon of anti-government protests that have rocked countries as close to home as Kenya and Uganda and as far as Nigeria and Bangladesh where days of sustained protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country.
Positive outlook
The Twaweza findings answer this question, albeit indirectly, by revealing that Tanzanians expressed a positive outlook on almost all major themes that the surveys sought to cover compared to their Kenyan and Ugandan neighbours. These include the cost of living, access to public services, and participation in governance.
For example, most Tanzanians (63 per cent) identify themselves as Tanzanians compared to just 52 per cent in Uganda and 26 per cent in Kenya. Many Tanzanians (70 per cent) also name “peacefulness” as the dominant national characteristic in which they take pride. The figure is 56 per cent in Uganda and 26 per cent in Kenya.
Three out of four Tanzanian citizens (75 per cent) report that they attended a community meeting in the previous year, compared to a little over half (56 per cent) in Kenya and a little under half (40 per cent) in Uganda.
READ MORE: Hidden Hunger And a Pool of Patience: Insights From 74,000 Hours of Conversation With Citizens
During a discussion that accompanied the launch of the findings, participants shared varying analyses of why Tanzanians are confident about the direction of their country. Fulgence Massawe, the director of reforms and advocacy at the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), said Tanzanians “have fallen in love with our problems that we have become part of them ourselves.”
Uninformed enough?
Robert Mwampembwa, the executive director of the Creative Industries Network Tanzania (CINT), an umbrella body of creative organisations, blamed the assessment on Tanzanians’ lack of information, which makes it difficult for them to get a clear picture of the direction their country is taking.
“The question of ignorance is bliss comes to mind,” Mr Mwampembwa remarked when reflecting on the Tanzanians’ confidence in their country’s direction. “Clarity of the people gives them more room to be critical of their governments. I believe the Kenyans have more clarity regarding governance than their Tanzanian counterparts. That’s why [Kenyans] are very critical of their government.”
However, Aidan Eyakuze, Twaweza’s executive director, rejected this analysis. He argued that many Kenyans are willing to participate in anti-government protests, such as those against high taxes, because they know they’ll have to pay them, an impression he feared many Tanzanians don’t share.
“It’s possible the reason why Tanzanians don’t protest against taxes is that many of them don’t pay them,” Mr Eyakuze, an economist, analysed. “Many of us [in Tanzania] are outside the tax net. So, [we say] it’s okay, raise them as higher as you want, [because we don’t pay them.”
READ MORE: Without Accountability, There’ll Never Be Justice. Nowhere
“Whereas in Kenya, many citizens know that the housing levy and any other levy introduced will hit them directly and hard because many Kenyans are inside the [Kenyan Revenue Authority’s] KRA tax net,” Mr Eyakuze added. “So, I think that’s perhaps one of the reasons why the Kenyans will stand up and make noise: they know any additional tax proposals will hurt their pockets directly.”
One Response
Thank you for this insightful article. I wanted to support my assertion about the influence of being a taxpayer on protesting about taxes. My argument is that tax-inspired protests are more likely to happen when larger shares of the adult population are taxpayers. Also the share of the economy that is collected in taxes (i.e., the tax-to-GDP ratio) may have an influence. Look at the following data from various sources:
1. Uganda has 2,765,900 registered taxpayers (2022). The tax revenue-to-GDP ratio in Uganda stands at 14%.
2. Kenya has approximately 7,288,000 registered taxpayers. The country’s tax revenue to GDP ratio is around 15.3%, the highest among the three countries.
3. Tanzania has around 3,800,000 registered taxpayers, representing about 11% of the adult population (up from less than 7% in 2018). The tax revenue to GDP ratio for Tanzania is the lowest among the three countries at around 12% (see https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=TZ). According to the 19th Tanzania Economic Update: Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in Tanzania, the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio increased from 10% in 2004/05 to 11.8% in 2022/23, with a peak of 13.3% in 2015/16.