Tanzania has freedom of worship and association enshrined in the constitution. Approximately 20 million citizens profess to be Christian in their spiritual faith. One famous televangelist keeps reminding his followers that the reason they are blessed with wealth is so that they can bless others.
To bless others must mean giving generously till it hurts. I am not sure the preacher is getting through. It is easier to give something from the excess of one’s ample supply. For some, to give even a small portion of their hard earned wealth requires divine intervention. Unless it is wealth acquired suddenly through a windfall, we humans are pretty tight fisted.
You worked hard much of your life and accumulated enough to have a comfortable life and then some and some fire and brimstone preacher is telling you to give it away? To those with little or nothing?
Why would you do that? If you won 100 million dollars in a lottery it is possible to give even half of it to you charitable causes. Imagine you are Mr William Dollar a.k.a. Dollar Bill now worth say US $ 50 billion which preacher will dare tell you to make others rich with your wealth.
To bless others does not mean feeding them. It means love them as you love yourself. Chances are you stopped going to church eons ago when you made your first few millions. Who needs a pie in the sky when you have everything going for you?
The Lord is not your shepherd and there is nothing you want from him. You have made your own green pastures and your foes tremble at the mention of your name. You did not become rich by playing Robbin Hood but by seizing opportunities to make money, annihilating competitors, maximising profits, minimising costs and accumulating riches instead of squandering it on no good lazy bones.
Becoming wealthy is hard work that for many, entails long hours, wheeling and dealing and making sacrifices to family and leisure. To paraphrase prophet Amos of biblical times, you sold the wheat and the chaff for a handsome profit, trod on poor feet, sold the lowly folks for the price of silver and with a pair of sandals you bought the impoverished. Trading is a common way to make wealth from time immemorial.
But how honest and fair have traders been over the centuries?
Did they overcharge on prices of goods and cheat by tinkering with the weighing scales? Are modern traders any different? Tanzanians remember the recent sugar supply and pricing saga during the holy month of Ramadan. What was that about if not greed and profit taking?
The poor and downtrodden are not all lazy bones. Many toil from womb to tomb to make ends meet and to ensure survival in environments they did not create or choose. They deserve fair wages, humane treatment and a decent minimum standard of life.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the current government is fighting tooth and nail to make sure everybody pays due taxes so that the resulting revenue can be invested in improving basic social services.
All of us citizens and residents who may be non-citizens have a duty to continue to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and also give to houses of worship generously. Which brings me to the biblical story of the administrator.
He was employed by a rich man to oversee his properties and manage his income. The administrator must have had a good income and lifestyle in his time. Unfortunately he was accused of misusing the resources of his boss so he was fired and asked to hand over an account of the rich man’s businesses. He was in deep trouble. He had not done menial jobs and was afraid he would have to beg to survive.
So he did was he was good at, which was wheeling and dealing. Which administrator worth his salt does not do that? The good ones do it for their employers. The bad ones do it for themselves. He called all his boss’ creditors, worked out a formula to reduce their debts by up to 50% by falsifying their contract documents.
The shrewd administrator knew by doing the creditors big favours, they would take care of him after his sacking. This steward sold his allegiance to traders and betrayed his master.
Even though the rich man praised the dishonest administrator for providing a complete report of the resources he managed, the good book tells us that no one can serve two masters.
A servant will tend to favour one master and not serve the other with equal or same faithfulness. In Tanzania the rich master is not an individual but the people. The citizens of this country are the rightful owners of the wealth of the land.
There are many administrators with differing levels of authority and responsibility, from the capital to the village. The question is, whose interests are these administrators protecting? And to what extent have past and perhaps present administrators protected traders from paying due taxes and duties or public employees and contractors from providing timely and quality goods and services? Ongoing government efforts to address shortcomings of the past need our full individual and collective support.
Let us note that those in position of decision-making are administrators and custodians of the wealth of Tanzania be it human, material, financial or whatever other form. The citizens are the real masters but only get a chance to sack top administrators once every five years. It is up to senior stewards to weed out dishonest managers and assistants during the fiveyear period an elected government is in office.
We as a nation cannot afford administrators who serve two masters.