by David Martin in Kilwa, Tanzania
“We are going to re-colonize this place,” a white South African Afrikaner from Durban told me bluntly in the historic Indian Ocean port of Kilwa, as Tanzanians throughout the country were celebrating their 40th anniversary of independence on 9 December
“Before we came they were eating grass,” he alleged, adding the none of the: profits from his new Tourism venture – normal investor duty free imports notwithstanding – would go to the community because the venture was so heavily taxed by the Tanzanian authorities.
The present cost of paying his 10 Tanzanian employees and running the Venture, purchased on December 200 l from a Tanzanian of Greek origin, is USS 1.500 per month; the income over US$4,000, he added.
The man had left South Africa around 1994 and had spent four years running resorts in West Africa and three years settling the east African coast looking for a place to invest. He had settled on Ki1wa because of its “untapped potential, beauty, safety and the friendliness of the people.”
It was his third visit to Kilwa and on this occasion he had been m the country for only nine days. By his own admission, he had never visited the 1,000-year-old Kilwa ruins nearby, occupied by the Portuguese and the Arabs, called at by French pirates and slavers, and once the outlet for the gold from the Great Zimbabwe state and the Central African Empire of Munhumatapa.
He is to be joined at Kilwa by seven other white South Africans: a manager and his wife who have been working in Mozambique, three captains for deep sea fishing. A dive master and a hunter-cumguide to the Selous Game Reserve.
How such a small tourist venture as the Kilwa resort can legitimately support eight white South Africans, as well as the main investor (another white South African with an extensive drilling network in Tanzania), remains a mystery. But, for the more upmarket tourist it remains the only place to stay in town.
His remarks are typical of those made by some whites to another throughout southern Africa. They are made in the erroneous and stereotyped belief that all whites think alike. They are rarely, if ever, made in front of black Africans .
But some whites think very differently. A British tea farmer m Tanzania whose wife and son have chosen to become Tanzanian citizens, observed in a recent letter” we are getting a great number of white South African investors in Tanzania, some of whom have a serious attitude · problem.
“They just simply cannot hear themselves, and, having spent their lives with older generations talking in the same manner, probably don’t realize they may upset anyone.” Other longtime white residents in Tanzania are upset by the ease with which the new arrivals obtain work permits
There are many white South Africans in Tanzania today although the real amount they are investing in the country remains in doubt. They are in the rapidly expanding hotel and tourism industry, real estate, supermarkets, a brewery, the banking sector, mining and drilling.
For some, Tanzania’s rich history, its contribution during the liberation struggle for southern Africa and Its present realities have passed by this new breed of settlers. To them the black person is still despised.
It would be easy to take the views expressed by the Afrikaner at Kilwa as indicative of many others who would not express the true motives for being in Tanzania quite so bluntly. Fortunately they are not necessarily widespread, although one hears them echoed in many different parts of the country where South African investors have selected.
Tanzania has tried to actively woo black South Africans into investing in the country. But after their years of deprivation, black South African interest is at home and that country’s Afrikaners, dislodged by majority rule are seeking profitable opportunities elsewhere as far north as Dares Salaam.
A black Tanzanian who had visited South Africa trying to lure black business interest from that country to invest in Tanz:1ma, said of the influx of white South Africans we need the1r investment and expertise.
The South African factor, black and white, remains of concern. In 1998, Tanzania’s imports from South Africa stood at TShsS5.99 billion (over US$9 million) while its exports to South Africa totaled only TShs4.l3 bill ion (less than US$50.000). This trade imbalance m South Africa’s favor stood at a staggering 2082 percent.
Under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) trade protocol, South Africa is listed as a “non-competing” nation along with the other 13 SADC member states.
While this may be true insofar as basic inputs such as machinery are concerned, 1t is not true when it comes to locally manufactured consumer goods such as sugar, glassware, footwear, soaps, leather articles, wood pulp, paper, plastic, coffee, tea, spices, oil seeds, meat, offal and animal products.
In 1998, Tanzania imported TShs 294 million (USS320, 000) worth of these products m addition to TShs3.39 billion (US 3, 700, 00) in beverages. Such imports undermine the production and
development of local industry. Tanzanian producers say.
Such trade may be temporarily advantageous to the South African private sector and government. But whether the export of the man at Kilwa and the flood of South African goods is to South Africa’s (and Tanzania’s) long-term advantage remains to be seen. Already the Tanzanian press IS questioning such disproportionate figures. (SARDC)
