Wednesday, August 13, 2008   

The Tanzanian government has indicated its readiness to re-posses all privatised public companies underperforming in the country.  Government findings revealed that most of these firms were "under performing or had been vandalized and abandoned".  The government believes foreign companies who bought the companies are to be blamed despite public knowledge of unnecessary bureaucracies which scare private investors from financing projects.

So, Tanzania's Consolidated Holding Corporation, the agency mandated to oversee privatization has been monitoring companies to make sure the new owners respect laid down regulations before purchasing them.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 

One of Africa's biggest problems is the non-existence of proper sanitation and good drinking water in many of its urban areas. Mountains of refuse are pretty much an accepted norm with open contests between human and animal scavengers. The situation is made worse by open sewers that make perfect breeding grounds for malaria, typhoid and diarrhea causing insects. 
 
African governments have demonstrated astonishing inefficiency in managing water and sanitation for almost six decades. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation spends N10bn annually on sanitation, but still can't get it right. So ordinary private individuals across Africa are now providing sanitation and water services to forestall the cycle of deaths resulting from poor sanitation.
 
However, it does appear the donor community still believes governments are better at providing basic services.  We reproduce below a submission our colleagues at IMANI and IPN made  two years ago to the U.K. government on how best donors and developing countries can increase access to basic services, such as health and education, in poor countries 

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