There should be opennessand transparency on sharing the important information relating to the village governanceduring the village assembly as stated by laws.Most of the village representative lack basic education, which is veryimportant on handling the technical matters. There should be on post trainingto build the capacity of these representative. The village government they should be allowed to choose their villagepriorities as per the available resources and implement their developmentprojects without interruption by the central government.
Thereshould be more enhancement to allow people participation in the decision-makingprocess, and formulation of their policies and they’re by law.There should be clear power demarcation betweendifferent organ in the structure of village governance to avoid the authorityoverlapping which sometimes causes the stalemate to important developmentmatters. F) Things needs to be done to improve governanceat the village /street level.Thisis mainly contributing by the lack of the ultimate legislative and executivepower to the village assembly like in the village council. Therefore, thevillage assembly is not effective and efficient as it was supposed to be.Thevillage assembly by law is a highest level of governance at village level onboth decision making and governance process.
But in practice as observe at sinza moristreet governance, it has only one major function of electing the villageleaders after every five years in the local elections.E) Theeffectiveness of village assembly While there is a clearsystem of accountability to the leaders of the village or street government.The performance of the established mechanism remains a challenge due to variousreason. Such as; a lack of awareness by people on the accountability toolsavailable to them, poor participation by people during decision making process,lack of information and difficult in accessing information.Furthermore, Section 61 (2) of the local government act, provides for otheroversight mechanisms by stating that any village council members who absentshimself from three consecutive ordinary meetings of the Village Council or of aCommittee meeting of which he is a member he shall by such absence bedisqualified from continuing to be a member of the village council of thatcommittee.
Accountability is all about continue being answerable for decisionundertaken even after the decision have been implemented, the account can be eitherpositive or negative. There is various mechanism to hold the leaders accountableat the village level, among of the mechanism is; resolution of removing thevillage chairperson from the post when it is supported by 2/3 of members attendedthe village assembly. D) Accountability mechanisms available andapplied to hold village leaders accountable . But still there is a challenge on participation of people on decisionmaking due to the bureaucratic structure of the local government on decisionmaking such as decision by village executive officer, who is not among theelected leaders and does not represent the interest of the people. Theoverlapping authority between the village executive officer and other body ofthe governance at village/street level hinder the effective participation bypeople on decision making process.On other hand the villageassembly is used to formulate and approve the implementation of local policiesand by laws.
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It the only platform which allows people participation on decidingtheir own affairs and setting up their priorities at both village and streetlevel.People at village/ streetlevel participates in decision making through the village assembly. The villageassembly intends to discuss and approve all matters approved by village councilor government.C) Citizensparticipation in decision making process at village/ street level Therefore, the currentstructure of giving the administrative mandate to street executive isdiminishing the authority from the people and handling it over back to thecentral government. And this limits the capacity of street government tofunction effectively and as a separate institution from the central government.
But there is a challenge of overlapping authority between the villagecommittee and government personnel. Which sometimes makes it difficult for thevillage/ street governance to implement its policies and by laws when thecollude with government policies and priorities. The village assembly consists of committee, these committee are assignedto handle and execute specific functions.
Such functions are; health andsanitary matters, education matters, security matters etc. The village assemblyaims at strengthening the citizen participation in governance process anddetermine their own affairs at village/ street level.The village assembly has been entitled with statutory, to formulate andapprove by laws and policies for development of their respective streets and villages.The village chairperson is the in charge of the village assembly. The villagechairperson is assisted in administrative matter by village executive officerto planning and implement the approved policies and by laws. The governance structure at village level is prescribed in localgovernment establishment act no 7 and 8 of 1982 section 14 (1) -(5) and 22 (1)-(3) respectively.
The street/village government is functioning under thestreet/village assembly which is attended by all street/village resident fromthe age of 18 and above. B) GovernanceStructure at village/street level .Generally, governance is the institutional capacity of public organizationsto provide public and other goods demanded by a country’s citizens or therepresentatives thereof in an effective, transparent, impartial, andaccountable manner, subject to resource constraints. The concept of governanceis most found in the international organization such as UNDP, IMF and WorldBank etc key area of interest to developing countries.
Which through goodgovernance initiatives try to support reforms and increase the capacity ofdeveloping countries government promoting and strengthening participation ofcivil society and citizen in governing process to the grass root level ofgovernance. But when you come to the conceptualization of governance is slightlywide and confusing depending on the literature and scholar perspective on governance.According to J.
Pierre (2000) who argues that “on one hand it refers tothe empirical manifestations of state adaptation to its external environmentand forces as it emerges in the late twentieth century and on the other hand,governance denotes a conceptual or theoretical representation of co-ordination ofsocial systems and, for the most part, the role of the state in that process.It gives the framework for central government role in steering the coordinationof the social system in bringing the social services and development to itspeople.The other theory is efficiency service theory; which urges that theprimary objective of establishing the local government is to enhance theefficiency and effectiveness of delivery of social service to the community asmeasured by central government. And the service should align with nationalobjectives. For instance, in Tanzania they formed the village developmentcommittee to spear head the development process in the lower level, and thesecommittee were responsible to mobilize resources and labour in building theschool and hospital in their respective areas. And ensuring there is properprovision of services to the residing citizen of their respective areas.The democratic participatory theory, theorize that the principalfunction of local government is to enhance democracy through widerparticipation of citizen in their political process. That is people should beallowed to participate freely on the process of electing their representativethrough democratic election.
Through this process the power is given to thepeople to determine their own affairs.For the sake of this paper, I will look on the context of the above twotheories, though there are other theories relating to local governance. Some ofthese theories are; the democratic participatory theory, efficiency servicetheory and development theory, Adeyemo (2005).And decentralization theory is more focusing on the delegation offunctional authority to the lower government organs. To enhance effectivenessand efficiency of service deliveries to the grassroot level. The delegatedinstitutions can make decision and implement some matters relating to theirinterest and priorities which does not call for the attention of the centralgovernment.
Political devolution theory proposes the capacity building of financialand legal status of government units which executes function that are notdirectly involved with the central government to work independently from theinfluence of central government. Under political devolution theory localgovernance are autonomous and works separately from central government.There are various theories associate with formulation of localgovernment worldwide. For case of Tanzania and this study. I will look at theat the decentralization and political devolution theories and its relevance toTanzania system of governance at the grass root level of village and streetlevel.The Tanzanian LocalGovernment system is founded based on political devolution and decentralizationof functional responsibilities, powers and resources from central government tolocal government and from higher levels of local government to lower levels oflocal government and overall empower the people to have ultimate control overtheir welfare as shown in URT (revised 2005). The Founding provision of theConstitution of the United Republic of Tanzania recognize local government asautonomous bodies with legal status operating with discretionary powers overlocal affairs within the unitary system of the Republic of Tanzania. TheTanzania local government system is designed to promote democracy and enhancedeliveries of public service at grass roots level.
A) Theoretical frameworkguiding village structure and governance Therefore, this paperwill analyze the concept of governance at Kijitonyama mpakani ward, Sinza moristreet on how the formulation of the existing governance structures helps orhinders the issues of accountability to the street leaders and the popularparticipation on decision making process and implementation of developmentagendas. And the power demarcation between the local government and the centralgovernment as prescribe in the URT (1977) and how it impacts the goodgovernance at the lower level of governance.During the post-colonial period, immediately after independence thegovernment inherited the pre-colonial structure of governance, while notabolishing the inherited local government structure, initiated many changeswhich had the effect of integrating it thoroughly in government and rulingparty structures and processes. According to Kamugisha (1979) the post-colonialconstitution did not pre-scribed the local governments as territorial areasseparate from the district. The organizational structure placed localgovernments below district administration. The moved cemented the local government, central government and theruling party to work as a single system but with asymmetrical power relations,with the party on top followed by the central government and lastly localgovernment. The local authority act was amendment in 1962 to omit the sectionwhich gave power to native authority of “Akida” and “Jumbe” as it was it was inthe pre-colonial system of governance.
For that amendment, the chief and kings wereeffectively abolished and were replaced by village committee system ofgovernance. The creation of a committee system was toprovide the necessary avenues for participation and to enable the localleadership to translate the people’s enthusiasm into solid achievement. Development committees were set up from thevillage to the regional level to spearhead and coordinate local developmentactivities as well as to create avenues for local participation in decisionmaking process.During the ancient time, the system of governance was highly centralized,that was from village or households to the kings. Kings has village representative in forms ofchief and cell leaders, whom collected taxes and rule on those areas on behalfof the king or chief. But during pre-colonial period, when the colonizerarrived in then Tanganyika, they found these systems of governance in place.
And they had to de-structure the system to impose their own system ofgovernance. For instance, the Germany colonial masters in the coastal areas andat the grassroots level the put in place the so-called akidas”. Below them were “jumbes”. According to Kimambo (1969) theoffices of the Akida and Jumbe were found in the coastal regionswhere the sultan of Zanzibar had employed them in his administrative structurestoo. These Jumbes were essentially village headmen who were hereditary andunpaid, who received compensation from tribute and services rendered by theirconstituencies.
But they main role was to ensure the smooth ruling of thecolonial master over whole of their constituencies. And cement their positionto the colonial structure of governance by their efficient execution of thecolonial interests over the local village population.government. The local government systemwas designed according to the British model of local government It is a centralizedsystem of local government with limited decision making and financial autonomy.
The structure of localgovernance in Tanzania has a long history, dated back to ancient times when wehad kingship and kinsman leadership. In relations to the concept of governanceI categorize the local governance into pre-colonial era and post-colonial erain Tanzania. Tanzania’s governmentsystem is made up two main structures. These are the central and localIntroduction
