Colonial Legacies in Contemporary Local Government Administrative Systems in Tanzania

Paul Mtasigazya¹

1. Dept. of Ethics and Leadership/The Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.9 , Issue.2 , pp.46-54, Feb-2023

Online published on Feb 28, 2023

Copyright © Paul Mtasigazya . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
This paper examined the colonial legacies in contemporary local government administrative system in Tanzania. The local government administrative system was inherited from colonial indirect rule system established by British colonialism. The main purpose of institutionalizing indirect rule through local chiefdom was to overcome African resistance, reducing cost as well as addressing the problem of scarcity of colonial personnel in colonial administration. Essentially, the contemporary local government system inherited some of the administrative structures, processes and methods of governing from British colonialism. It is on this backdrop, this paper examined the colonial legacies inherited postcolonial and it explored how these legacies hinder or promote local governance in contemporary local government administration in African countries particularly in Tanzania. This study used case study design and sample size was 20 respondents. The methods of data collection were interview and documentary review while the data were analysed through thematic data analysis. This study noted that the legal and institutional reforms constitute what may be described as centralized local governance in Tanzania. This study supports dependence theory that the colonial legacies have continued to hamper the functionality of LGAs as it is established that Tanzania local governments have challenges inherited from colonial administration such as lack of constitutional protection which manifests when Local government’s fall under strict control through the Acts of the parliament, judicial and central government control. Furthermore, this study has noted have limited financial resource mobilization ranging from 7% to 10% of their expenditure which undermine the LGA performance. In addition, the institutional and legal reforms in local government were largely financed by the donor who undermined local autonomy and priorities. This study recommends that in order to promote local autonomy and realize the “fruits” of local government reforms, the reforms should be locally financed and central government commitment is necessary for promoting local governance and responsive local governments in Tanzania.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Colonial Legacies, Contemporary local government, Local government reform, Administrative system

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