Local Governments In Tanzania Research Articles

Work Environment and Job Performance: The Mediating Role of Office Ergonomics

This study aimed to address the influence of the Work Environment on employees’ health and safety, comfort, and task accomplishment by investigating office ergonomics as the possible underlying mechanism. The study was conducted in Dodoma City Council, specifically in the ward and Mitaa offices. Data were collected from 79 respondents through a questionnaire. Data were analyzed quantitatively using the Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis, and the Sobel test was performed to assess if the mediator variable was significant enough to mediate the relationship between variables. The study has found that work environment and ergonomics have a linear and positive relationship (r = 0.5433, p < .0001). The results have also indicated that ergonomics is related to employee health and safety, comfort, and task accomplishment. The study revealed that most offices in lower local government authorities in Dodoma City Council need ergonomically designed chairs and tables, adequate quality air, and lighting. Inadequacy of these elements risks the office bearers' health and safety, comfort, and performance. Therefore, ergonomics should be a strategic aspect in enhancing work efficiency and productivity in lower local government in Tanzania.

Employees’ Motivation and Local Governments Performance in Tanzania: A Case Mvomero District Council

Employee motivation is a universal concept that is accepted by human resource practitioners as a tool to improve organizational performance. This study sought to examine the effects of employee motivation in improving performance in local governments in Tanzania. The study aims at examining the contribution of employee motivation to local governments in Tanzania. This paper adopted a research case design whereby Mvomero District Council was the case study. A sample size of 78 respondents was taken for the study. The study adopted a mixed approach whereby qualitative and quantitative approaches in the data collection process. The data was collected through key informant interviews and questionnaires. The findings revealed that the majority of the respondents were negative about the employee motivation provided in Mvomero District Council, especially at ward and village levels. The findings also, found that there is a positive relationship between employees’ motivation and employees’ performance. The higher the employee’s motivation the higher the employee’s performance. The study indicated that employees are motivated by financial motivation rather than non-financial motivation. The study concluded that there is a greater relationship between employee performance and employee motivation and employees in rural settings are less motivated compared to their counterparts in an urban setting. The study recommended that the government incentives policies should be reversed not only to motivate top management levels and consider middle and lower levels employees. The study also, recommended for the Mvomero District Council to improve the working conditions of the employees who are working in remote areas

A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Transparency in local government finance and service delivery: The case of Mwanza City and Moshi District Councils in Tanzania

Transparency is an essential tool of local governance which enables the local citizens to hold local institutions accountable for their performance, to foster trust in government, minimize corruption and improve local service delivery. Accountability and transparency have been on the top of agendas in all the local government reforms in Tanzania. For transparency to work properly, it needs effective structures of implementation. Within the local government system in Tanzania, the structures of transparency are present but appear to be not working as they should do. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which the problems of transparency have persisted under the new phase of local government reforms and how they are likely to impact on local service delivery in Tanzania. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to examine the extent to which fiscal transparency in local governments in Tanzania is practised and how this has played a greater role in service delivery. The study used a case study of purposively selected local councils in Tanzania to examine the dynamics of fiscal transparency and service delivery. The findings show that there is little flow of information from higher levels of local governments to the lower levels in relation to resources available and results achieved. The information received from the councils is sometimes opaque or fuzzy in the sense that it does not reveal all about what their leaders do or what important decisions have been made about their councils. The study concludes that the importance of accountability and transparency attached to service delivery in any country is essential for good practice in local governance. Hence, instruments for accountability and transparency at the local levels must be enhanced to enable public institutions and public officials to be responsive to the citizens.

Splintered Recruitment and Selection Activities in Local Governments in Tanzania

Splintered Recruitment and Selection Activities in Local Governments in Tanzania

The Demand and Supply Sides of Accountability in Local Government Authorities in Tanzania

Accountability and transparency have been on the top of lists of the agenda about local governance. Unfortunately, a significant number of studies have tended to view accountability through the traditional model of public administration (supply side of accountability) at the expense of the demand side of accountability. Based on the experience with decentralization in Tanzania for the past four decades, this article argues that both the demand and supply sides are important for effective service delivery by local governments. In this arrangement, the fundamental principle of democracy is attained when citizens have the right to demand accountability and public officials are held accountable. The demand side, which is bottom up driven by non–state actors, or the supply side, which encompasses legal and fiscal governmental checks and balances may lead to effective local good governance. This article is based on these assumptions and therefore attempts to discuss the main avenues and challenges for exercising effective supply and demand sides of accountability in local governments in Tanzania. The study seeks to answer the question of how the demand and supply sides of accountability have been implemented in Tanzania, regarding local governments.

Contract Management in Outsourced Revenue Collection in Local Governments in Tanzania: Experience from Selected Local Government Councils

Local Government’s Capacity for Contract management in outsourced revenue collection in Tanzania has become the major topic of discussio. This paper explores recent issues concerning Contracts management in outsourced revenue collection in Tanzania, including feasibility studies prior to outsourcing revenue collection, design of the contracts for revenue collection, monitoring of the performance of the private companies in revenue collection, timely remittance of revenues by the private companies to local councils as well as financial and human resources capacity in enforcing these contracts. The study adopted the case study research design and the methods of data collection were interviews and documentary review. The findings indicate that key problems to contract management and enforcements are corruption, collusion between local government officials and private companies, laxity in conducting feasibility studies and poor monitoring of private companies which do not bring the desired outcomes in terms of revenue collection. Based on the study findings, this research concludes that the private companies and Local governments should comply with contractual agreements and improve human and financial resources capacity in order to provide revenue saving from outsourced revenue collection.

REDD+, NGOs and local government in Tanzania

SUMMARY REDD+ activities in Tanzania have been financially supported mainly by Norway. Approxi mately 40% of the funds have been allocated to pilot projects in nine districts, which were implemented not by government, but by NGOs. This decision by the Norwegian Embassy was taken partly in the interest of speedy implementation, but also because of recent problems of government corruption. This paper—based on case studies from Kilosa, Kilwa and Kondoa—assesses the implications of allocating local government only a minimal role. The focus is on the building of REDD+ governance structures; more specifically their input legitimacy (parti cip ation, transparency and accountability) and output legitimacy (effectiveness, efficiency and equity). The conclusion is that the NGOs generally implemented the pilot projects as contracted, but that local government has lost the opportunity to gain experience and develop the compe tence needed to implement REDD+ in the future and ensure its longer-term sustainability.

Understanding Political – Administrative Relations in Local Governments in Tanzania: A Case of Tanga City Council

Political-administrative relations are attracting the attention of researchers in the current public administration domain in developing countries. Local governments in Tanzania operate based on two types of officials namely; politicians and administrators and whose performance is largely dependent on the relationship of the two. The purpose of the paper was to provide a clear picture of the political-administrative relation in local governments. The study adopted a case study design by purposefully selecting Tanga City Council. A total of fifty (50) respondents were selected purposefully based on their knowledge and experience in working with the elected officials. The methods of data collection used include, survey method, interview, observation, Focus Group Discussion and Key Focus Interview (KFIs). Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis and quantitative data were analysed using SPSS whereby descriptive statistics were computed. The study revealed that the relationship between the elected and the appointed officials is characterized by conflict, distrust and interference that negatively affect employee’s performance in local government. Further, the study revealed that poor relations is highly associated with conflict of interests, distrust, task interdependence, political interference, lack of education on the side of politicians, poor communication and partisan politics. The study recommends that the government should have a regular monitoring of the relations between the two and encourage cooperation. Also the elected officials need to be trained on how to perform their roles in their areas of jurisdiction. The study recommend further that the elected and the appointed officials should perform their duties for public interests, increase the level of trust and do away with partisan politics in performing local government functions.

Employee’s Motivation in Rural Local Governments in Tanzania: Empirical Evidence from Morogoro District Council

Human resources apart from other resources in an organization are the most valuable resource for effective organizational performance. Organization either public or private is highly depends on employee’s performance and commitment towards achieving organizational goals. Employee’s commitment is associated with employee’s motivation at workplace and depends highly on how management treats employees. The purpose of this paper was to analyze employee’s motivation in rural Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in Tanzania. The case study design was employed in which Morogoro District Council (MDC) was randomly selected as a study case. The sample size of the study was 55 employees from management, middle and lower levels. The methods of data collection used includes, Interview and self-administered questionnaires and observations. Data collected was analyzed through Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS). The study revealed that employees in local governments are not motivated in both financial and non financial aspects. Employees are dissatisfied with low salaries, lack of promotion and career development, poor training program, working environment, poor communication, unfair treatments and political interferences. The study recommends for the central government to improve salaries to employees, ensure fair promotion based on merits, invest in employee training and development, secure low rates loans, improve communication and relations between management and employees as well as to minimize political interference to local government employees by elected officials.

Fiscal Capacity Equalisation in Tanzania

Fiscal equalisation aims at enabling decentralised governments to supply similar services at similar tax rates. In order to equalise fiscal disparities, differences in both fiscal capacities and in fiscal needs have to be measured. This paper focuses on the measurement of fiscal capacity in a developing country. The current intergovernmental transfer system in Tanzania does not take differences in fiscal capacity into account. As a result, local governments in rich areas are able to generate considerably more revenue per capita than those in poor areas. Public services in poor areas are hard to finance. We propose a way of measuring fiscal capacities of local governments in Tanzania using poverty data. We use this measure to derive an equalisation grant that would support local governments that have a low fiscal capacity.

Corruption, Taxation and Natural Resource Management in Tanzania

Democratic decentralisation of natural resource management requires careful attention to the distribution of power, devolved accountability and institutional design. However, even if all these elements are well crafted, failures in efficiency, equity and service delivery are possible because of the way institutions of government are lived out in the practice of day-to-day life. This paper presents a detailed account of the performance of local government in Tanzania. It demonstrates remarkable deficiencies in the workings of local government taxation and service delivery, despite the well structured, downwardly accountable nature of local government. It considers the implications of these failures for calls for community-based conservation, and the importance of good institutional design in effective decentralisation.

An evaluation of the property tax in Tanzania

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the potential role of property taxes as a revenue source for local government in Tanzania. Often this tax is beset with political and administrative problems that affect its operational efficiencies.Design/methodology/approachThe research is the result of extensive fieldwork undertaken in Tanzania during 2002 to investigate and evaluate the valuations done for purposes of the property tax in Dar es Salaam and eight regional towns.FindingsUrban local government revenues, and in particular those classified as own revenues in Tanzania and other East African countries, are generally not sufficient enough to develop and supply adequate urban services to the region's fast growing urban population. The main findings of the paper highlight the difficulties faced by municipalities in developing and maintaining a property tax system.Research limitations/implicationsThe key problems were lack of experienced staff, limited equipment and significant political interference.Practical implicationsThis research clearly identified the need for developing countries to recognize the importance of creating sustainable tax sources that are easily managed at low costs. The work found that the property tax system as designed for Tanzania was not sustainable and suggests a range of possible improvements.Originality/valueThe research did indicate that significant results could be achieved through implementing improvements in developing a simplified valuation basis and through greater collection efficiency. The research should be of particular interest to policy and decision makers within other developing countries who are embarked on a process of property tax reform.

Councils, collectors and communities: Revenue collection and administrative reach in a Tanzanian and a Zimbabwean council

This article analyses the administrative reach of local governments in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This is done through an empirical analysis of the systems of local tax collection in the two countries. Based on fieldwork in one district in each country, the politics and administration of local tax collection is analysed. It is argued that both councils are characterised by limited administrative reach, albeit for different reasons. While the Zimbabwean council has higher administrative capacity than the Tanzanian one, the penetration and political sovereignty of the Zimbabwean council is limited by the presence of strong local elites (traditional leaders and commercial farmers). Although such elites are not found in Tanzania, the administrative reach of the council remains limited, mainly because of administrative weakness. It is also argued that both councils are characterised by a blurring of the boundaries between the state and society.

Local government in Tanzania: Partner in development or administrative agent of the central government?

Local government in Tanzania: Partner in development or administrative agent of the central government?

Short-term resource mobilization for recurrent financing of rural local governments in Tanzania

Rural local governments in Tanzania were reintroduced in 1984. They face the serious problem of financing the operation and maintenance of basic services. The problems have accumulated over the last two decades due to macroeconomic imbalances, past development policies, and institutional problems. Estimates of the additional funds needed for adequate financing of salary and nonsalary recurrent expenditures components are provided. The short-term possibilities of raising these funds domestically are analyzed at the village, district and central levels. Various economic, political and institutional constraints are identified. Competing claims on public sector revenues are discussed. It is concluded that without short-term external assistance for recurrent financing of local governments, basic services are likely to deteriorate even further. Such assistance will probably become increasingly important in the 1990s. Without it the domestic policy changes and administrative improvements needed to mobilize resources in the long run will be difficult to achieve.