Tanzania’s descent into despotism
Three years ago this week, John Magufuli came to power in Tanzania amid much fanfare. He’s done much in the way of reform — but the slow creep towards autocracy is concerning
After John Magufuli became Tanzania’s fifth president in November 2015, it soon became clear that this was a man determined to govern differently. Within weeks of his inauguration, he had cancelled Independence Day celebrations, using the budgeted funds to fight cholera and calling on citizens to join him in a countrywide clean-up instead.Enthralled by the rare sight of an African president leading by example, the Twittersphere buzzed with photographs of Magufuli sweeping the streets. As a new broom determined to clean up a sclerotic, inefficient and corrupt government, he made surprise visits to hospitals, the finance ministry and elsewhere, firing corrupt and underperforming civil servants and ministers. In 2016 he removed 16,000 "ghost" employees from the public sector payroll; last year, Al Jazeera reported on a further 10,000 fired for lacking adequate qualifications.A crackdown on tax evasion and a shake-up of the revenue service resulted in 1.3-trillion Tanzanian shillings (a...
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