British envoy opens up on the highs and lows of his service in Tanzania

QUESTION: What were your key priorities when you took office, and to what extent were you able to deliver?

When I arrived in August 2020, some of my early priorities were pretty clear.

Number one was the global pandemic Covid-19 and ensuring the safety of my staff.

The second priority was supporting the British business community, many of whom were impacted by the pandemic, especially those in the tourism sector.

The third was getting the British High Commission ready and prepared for the 2020 elections in Tanzania as accredited observers.

The fourth priority was in two areas: climate change and economic development.

Tanzania is an important country in terms of the UK’s cooperation in climate change and accessing climate financing.

On the economic side, the UK was already the second-largest cumulative investor in terms of foreign direct investment in Tanzania.

My priority was to further expand our investment in the country and to increase bilateral trade.

We managed to hold the first UK-Tanzania trade and investment bilateral forum, and we have seen several expanded investments from the UK into Tanzania.

How did President John Magufuli’s death impact your service, considering you were still in the early stages of your tenure and owing to the tense diplomatic relations at that time?

It was a shock! It was a tragedy for the family, friends, and close associates of the president, but it was also a shock to the nation.

I spent a bit of time with Magufuli in January 2021 in Bukoba, inaugurating a new school.

I couldn’t have imagined then that two months later I would be attending his State funeral.

The question was, would there be a smooth transition of power?

There was, and Tanzania emerged united.

After paying our respects to Magufuli, all the diplomats in Tanzania were keen on understanding the new leadership under President Samia and whether she would be doing things a bit differently, and if so, how we could support her.

Magufuli’s government did not see eye-to-eye with the private sector, including foreign investors, on some issues.

How did you navigate those times?

There were tensions between the private sector and the government administration at that time.

By the time I arrived, those tensions were beginning to ease.

A lot of those tensions focused on tax and whether the businesses were paying the appropriate amount of tax or disclosing appropriate levels of profit.

So I believe some real issues needed sorting out.

By the time President Samia came into office, things were already beginning to move in a somewhat more positive direction.

But I think it’s not right to caricature Magufuli’s presidency as being entirely against businesses.

The 2020 elections in Tanzania were marred with claims of election irregularities.

As an accredited observer, what was your assessment of the election process?

It was a difficult election; you can’t pretend otherwise. There were claims of election irregularities and counter-claims.

The Zanzibar elections were particularly challenging.

But I think the important thing is that Tanzania has moved on from that period and is now under a different leadership.

The test for Tanzania is whether the lessons from 2020 have been learned.

Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are some of the economic and geopolitical events that happened from 2020 to date.

How did these events impact Britain’s relations with Tanzania?

When President Samia came into office, she did a rapid turnaround of Covid-19 policies, which enabled partners like the UK and multilateral international institutions to step up.

What we learned from the pandemic is the importance of having good and strong partnerships with countries on issues of health security, infectious diseases, and outbreak response systems.

Regarding the Ukraine invasion, what we learned is how interconnected the world is, and we also saw how the invasion impacted the prices of food, energy, and fertilizers.

Few people knew just how much fertilizer was being sold and traded to Africa from Ukraine and how dependent some countries were on grain and food exports from Ukraine.

We have now stepped up our cooperation with Tanzania on food security and the diversification of import and export dependencies.

Tanzania largely exports raw materials to the UK, creating a trade imbalance. How have you addressed this challenge?

One of the biggest challenges countries in Africa face is how to generate jobs, particularly for youth.

Digging things from the ground and selling them as unprocessed commodities might bring in foreign exchange, but it doesn’t create many jobs.

African countries need to build up economic sectors that can create jobs, such as tourism.

Ultimately, Tanzania and other countries will need to move up the value chain and do more in manufacturing and those sectors that can generate jobs. It’s not easy, but it’s not insurmountable.

Often, when you get into this topic, people ask why the UK isn’t accepting more exports from Tanzania.

In my four years here in Tanzania, I have spoken to Tanzanian and international investors, and what I hear repeatedly is that many of them would like to export finished goods, but they are struggling to get a market even here in Tanzania because they are finding it difficult to compete with imported finished goods, which are undercutting them and coming in more cheaply.

There is something about the policy environment in Tanzania that doesn’t favour domestic manufacturing and production but is more favourable to importers.

One of the things that holds Africa back economically is the relatively low trade volume within Africa due to infrastructural shortages.

These challenges need to be fixed if jobs for youth in Africa are to be created, as well as for local manufacturers to expand their market.

Despite these policy challenges, the UK still invests billions of dollars in Tanzania. How can you influence better trade policies?

The Tanzanian government has many excellent experts who are on to this.

I also hope that the National Trade Policy will achieve a re balancing that will enable Tanzanian businesses that produce finished goods to be able to compete more effectively in Tanzania and Africa and then start exporting beyond Africa.

This will enable Tanzania to be a lot less dependent on foreign aid, even though we have seen tremendous development.

Today, Tanzania and its development partners work on technical assistance and system reforms such as expanding the tax base and changing policies.

We no longer do the things we as donors used to do, which is step in and do things that the government should be doing for its own citizens.

European ambassadors wrote a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs raising concerns about the business environment in Tanzania concerning taxes.

What were your major concerns?

What happened a few months ago is a return to tax practices we saw in the fifth phase government, which includes things like businesses being confronted with a tax bill for large amounts of money with no explanation on how they owe that money and then given very short deadlines on when to respond, and then, in some cases, being subjected to these agency notices, which then lead to bank accounts being frozen.

This was happening not only to UK-invested businesses but also to Tanzanian businesses, and the entire private sector was affected.

Some of the biggest taxpayers in Tanzania are British businesses, and all they ask in return is for a fair deal and for the tax system to be transparent, simple, and predictable.