It’s high time for Bunge to go paperless

Mwassa Jingi It has been well argued that one of weaknesses of our developing countries like Tanzania is poor management of their resources but at the same time blaming development partners for not helping them enough. We in developing world do not know that wealth comes through hard work and saving; and this is just a matter of choice just like what the Father of this nation, Julius Nyerere taught us: “to plan is to choose”. If we fail to plan and choose on how to spend our resources wisely, lest we should blame those who give us aid when occasionally may fail to do so. We cannot develop if we cannot manage our resources well and control our daily expenditure reasonably.   On 21st January 2015, the Embassy of China in Dar es Salaam donated to the Parliament of Tanzania office equipment worth millions of Tanzania shilling. Donating the equipment Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania said that the equipment was promised by Chinese President who visited the country last year and got an opportunity to meet Madame Speaker Anne Makinda. Probably the latter asked the former to help in equipping her institution with modern equipment including laptops for members of Parliament. According to the Ambassador, the equipment donated was meant to meet the pledge made by H.E. President of China. Speaking after receiving the equipment, Speaker Makinda hinted that such equipment came at right time and if wisely used would save a lot of money used to print documents for use by members of Parliament as hard copies. This reminds me of the world without papers- paperless world. Several research reports have shown that stationery is one of top component which highly contributes in big expenditure of an organization or even the country. Stationery and use of papers in general contribute to big loss to organizations and eventually force them to go bankrupt. In this era of computer technology, each Member of Parliament compulsorily must learn and use laptop. This would not only save money but improve their work as well. Unfortunately, most of developing countries, including Tanzania do not have discipline when it comes to use of papers. Stationery is taken for granted as a minimal expenditure but is the one that costs government a lot of money, taking into account that all government procurement eats away almost 70 percent of recurrent budget annually, and stationery is one of the elements which through bidding its prices can highly be made extravagant by bidders colluding with government procuring officers. Let all public institutions now consider paper use for whatever usage as extravagance that can easily be avoided by investing in electronic system and use laptops by all officials and thus minimize use of hard copies. This will save a lot of money wasted every year for stationery and printing of documents. Our government and its all institutions must now think outside the box. They must maximize use of soft copies in all needs that demand hard copies. With the current quality of available technology, there is no need for public institutions like Parliament to go on spending a lot of money on papers for printing of documents. Worse enough, both our politicians and technocrats are not concerned with heavy burden the taxpayers carry on many unnecessary expenditure, stationery being one of them. A Classic example is that, an envelope of say 500/= through bidding can be sold to government institution at a price of Tsh. 3000/=. A 4A rim of 4000/= can be sold at 10,000/=. Such expenditure can be saved by use of Information Technology communication (ICT). Where the programme of establishing e-government has gone? If still exists, we must speed it up. It is high time now for our Bunge which is a bigger consumer of papers to switch to use ICT that can immensely reduce use of papers on stationery budget and thus save billions of shillings that can be spent on other basic needs like health, education and water services. Most of public institutions including Parliament are full of young people with ample knowledge of using laptops and hence reduce use of papers for printing of documents. We are very poor country and we cannot always go as unconcerned society in management of our little cash we collect monthly through Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) which is about Tshs 800 billion. No doubt, our Parliament is one of leading public institution that spends billions of shillings each year on stationery and paid printed documents by Government Printer and others, in particular, these documents distributed Members of Parliament as hard copies for reading prior to any discussions. Currently, all MPs cannot debate any issue without first being served with printed materials whether of budget papers or Bills. How much billions of shillings are spent every year in printing volume of budgetary documents? How much money is spent through printing of Bill documents? All these expenses can be avoided if we are cost conscious.    If Parliament can switch to use of laptops for all MPs, it will reduce its budget probably by half. Let all MPs be served with laptops and be trained on how to use them, in particularly in accessing soft documents that otherwise might need hard copies. It’s cheaper and cost effective to use soft copy documents rather than go on with our usual routing of supplying each MP with hard copy of every document. It’s not enough to always complain that we do not have money to meet our budgets. It’s time to find out how can we slim our expenditures and one of an obvious area is this of stationery. I would like to urge both politicians and technocrats in government to place use of ICT at top priority as one of austerity measures that can help them to reduce to maximum use of stationery for printing purposes and instead encourage and promote use of soft copying almost in every area which traditionally would demand hard copying. The new culture once built must be transferred and be adopted by all local government authorities which are the most victims of financial restraints.  To plan is to choose. Let’s choose paperless world and see how much money we are going to save in the coming financial year 2015/2016. mwassajingi@yahoo.com; 0756 440 175.

ENGLISH ARTICLES

It’s high time for Bunge to go paperless

Mwassa Jingi

It has been well argued that one of weaknesses of our developing countries like Tanzania is poor management of their resources but at the same time blaming development partners for not helping them enough. We in developing world do not know that wealth comes through hard work and saving; and this is just a matter of choice just like what the Father of this nation, Julius Nyerere taught us: “to plan is to choose”. If we fail to plan and choose on how to spend our resources wisely, lest we should blame those who give us aid when occasionally may fail to do so. We cannot develop if we cannot manage our resources well and control our daily expenditure reasonably.

  On 21^st January 2015, the Embassy of China in Dar es Salaam donated to the Parliament of Tanzania office equipment worth millions of Tanzania shilling. Donating the equipment Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania said that the equipment was promised by Chinese President who visited the country last year and got an opportunity to meet Madame Speaker Anne Makinda. Probably the latter asked the former to help in equipping her institution with modern equipment including laptops for members of Parliament. According to the Ambassador, the equipment donated was meant to meet the pledge made by H.E. President of China.

Speaking after receiving the equipment, Speaker Makinda hinted that such equipment came at right time and if wisely used would save a lot of money used to print documents for use by members of Parliament as hard copies. This reminds me of the world without papers- paperless world. Several research reports have shown that stationery is one of top component which highly contributes in big expenditure of an organization or even the country. Stationery and use of papers in general contribute to big loss to organizations and eventually force them to go bankrupt. In this era of computer technology, each Member of Parliament compulsorily must learn and use laptop. This would not only save money but improve their work as well.

Unfortunately, most of developing countries, including Tanzania do not have discipline when it comes to use of papers. Stationery is taken for granted as a minimal expenditure but is the one that costs government a lot of money, taking into account that all government procurement eats away almost 70 percent of recurrent budget annually, and stationery is one of the elements which through bidding its prices can highly be made extravagant by bidders colluding with government procuring officers.

Let all public institutions now consider paper use for whatever usage as extravagance that can easily be avoided by investing in electronic system and use laptops by all officials and thus minimize use of hard copies. This will save a lot of money wasted every year for stationery and printing of documents. Our government and its all institutions must now think outside the box. They must maximize use of soft copies in all needs that demand hard copies.

With the current quality of available technology, there is no need for public institutions like Parliament to go on spending a lot of money on papers for printing of documents. Worse enough, both our politicians and technocrats are not concerned with heavy burden the taxpayers carry on many unnecessary expenditure, stationery being one of them. A Classic example is that, an envelope of say 500/= through bidding can be sold to government institution at a price of Tsh. 3000/=. A 4A rim of 4000/= can be sold at 10,000/=. Such expenditure can be saved by use of Information Technology communication (ICT). Where the programme of establishing e-government has gone? If still exists, we must speed it up.

It is high time now for our Bunge which is a bigger consumer of papers to switch to use ICT that can immensely reduce use of papers on stationery budget and thus save billions of shillings that can be spent on other basic needs like health, education and water services. Most of public institutions including Parliament are full of young people with ample knowledge of using laptops and hence reduce use of papers for printing of documents. We are very poor country and we cannot always go as unconcerned society in management of our little cash we collect monthly through Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) which is about Tshs 800 billion.

No doubt, our Parliament is one of leading public institution that spends billions of shillings each year on stationery and paid printed documents by Government Printer and others, in particular, these documents distributed Members of Parliament as hard copies for reading prior to any discussions. Currently, all MPs cannot debate any issue without first being served with printed materials whether of budget papers or Bills. How much billions of shillings are spent every year in printing volume of budgetary documents? How much money is spent through printing of Bill documents? All these expenses can be avoided if we are cost conscious.   

If Parliament can switch to use of laptops for all MPs, it will reduce its budget probably by half. Let all MPs be served with laptops and be trained on how to use them, in particularly in accessing soft documents that otherwise might need hard copies. It’s cheaper and cost effective to use soft copy documents rather than go on with our usual routing of supplying each MP with hard copy of every document. It’s not enough to always complain that we do not have money to meet our budgets. It’s time to find out how can we slim our expenditures and one of an obvious area is this of stationery.

I would like to urge both politicians and technocrats in government to place use of ICT at top priority as one of austerity measures that can help them to reduce to maximum use of stationery for printing purposes and instead encourage and promote use of soft copying almost in every area which traditionally would demand hard copying. The new culture once built must be transferred and be adopted by all local government authorities which are the most victims of financial restraints.  To plan is to choose. Let’s choose paperless world and see how much money we are going to save in the coming financial year 2015/2016.

mwassajingi@yahoo.com; 0756 440 175.