Tuesday 23 October 2007

Poverty in The Land of Plenty

God Blessed us with land, ever running rivers and big fresh water lakes, large reserves of minerals and vast fauna and flora and yet we are the one of the poorest nations on earth. Where have we gone wrong and why are we still doing wrong. We have huge population of which can be turned into labour force that will drive this country to prosperity.

Prosperity is everyone's dream, it is hard work if we want to prosper we need to change the way we think, act, behave, attitude and get rid of all negative aspects of our lives that have been holding us down for so long. We are sorrounded by wealth but yet we are blind to see it. We need vision and proper set of goals that within a time frame should be achieved and learn from the experience. Where should we start, since the current situation shows we are in a quagmire of corruptions, ignorance, technical know-how.

We should start from the roots of our problems, that is to understand where we are, where we came from, and where we should be going. In terms of poverty, we need to establish a system that will ensure the lives of our population is gradually but consistently improved. We can start from local authorities, every local authorities should know its natural and un-natural resources and how those resources benefit the local population. how many people live in the local area and how wealth is distributed among the individuals. Local authorities should have task-force groups that will ensure employment opportunities are explored in every direction and local people are given special priority in benefitting from their local resources.

A real example, let us take Kawe in Kinondoni District, the area is bordered with beautiful sandy beach with huge unoccupied areas. there are lots of young men without proper jobs and they involve themselves in day to day job hunting looking for any opportunity that may arise. some of them have formed a group for car washing along side the main road.

The local authority could use these young men and women for the benefit of the local area and the society in general by recognising their effort to employ themselves and provide them with facilities to officiate their work. The beach can be used as another employment opportunity by creating jobs like cleaning and maintaing the beach fronts and encourage people to visit the beach that will create a lot of informal business such as vendors for refreshment and entertainment goods.

Safety look-out for swimmers can be established and that will ensure the safety of all beach users. in the process the local authority can create an income by charging a small fee to the vendors who may operate on the beach front in peak time like saturday and sunday.

Official activities may attract people from other places to visit and hence increase wealth distribution among the local people for selling their services. all these process have to be transparent so that every element in the system know exactly what they are supposed to do.

Local authority initiatives can pave a way for its population to get rid of poverty with far more efficiency and positive results than what is currently being implemented.

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