Need to get local trained, experienced sports experts

WHEN Tanganyika got her political independence on December 9th 1961 (before it would change its name to Tanzania on April 26th 1964 following the Union with Zanzibar), one of the major challenges it faced was non-availability of trained manpower.


In one of his early speeches, the founding father of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, said at the time of independence, Tanganyika had one medical doctor and one engineer!


It was thus not surprising that because of the shortage of trained manpower, many important leadership and technical posts were given to people who had barely had ten classes of education.


It was due to the shortage of trained manpower that the country is known to have appointed even taxi drivers like Mustapha Songambele as regional commissioners their qualification being nothing but their possession of enlightened political outlook.


However, it hardly took ten years for the country to get most of its required manpower that would fill in all kinds of technical and other posts in its socioeconomic sectors.


Since then, the question of trained manpower is no longer an issue. In fact, over the years, Tanzania has been so much endowed with highly trained manpower that it has for the last three decades become one of the leading exporters of trained manpower in the continent.


But since the country succeeded in taming the problem of shortage of manpower, a second problem has been rearing its ugly head, namely, the country’s failure to put the right crop of trained manpower where they are required.


It’s therefore not surprising to find a number of places facing shortage of trained manpower when the people who can fill in such posts are in galore.


For instance, take a hard look at any place or institution which is facing shortage of trained manpower and more often than not you would discover that the problem lies not in non-availability of the right people, but rather on either deliberate move on the part of the leadership to fill in the place with unqualified people (relatives and friends) or simply laziness in hunting for the right crop of experts.


For instance, the former minister for energy and minerals, Sospeter Muhongo was fished out of the country where he had been working very successfully as a geologist.







The same thing could be said about the former minister for transport, Mr Omar Nundu, a highly trained aircraft engineer (who had worked for Air Tanzania Corporation) who had been working for an international aviation company in Canada.




Presently, one of the problems facing Tanzania is poor performance in regional, continental and international sports ranging from athletics to football and from boxing to basketball. Since football was introduced in Tanzania by the colonialists, the country has never qualified for the Fifa World Cup.




And continentally, the last time Tanzania qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations, Afcon, was in 1980 in Lagos, Nigeria. But as already noted, our sporting problems have more to do not with the non-availability of sports experts but rather by our failure to fish out such experts who are in galore.




Instead of fishing out sports experts who are living in our midst we have, for years, been busy either sidelining them or going for poorly trained and experienced sports experts.




For instance, I have always asked myself whether we really understand or take into account the importance and complexity of numerous posts that our government or public institutions fill in with what they consider to be the requisite crop of experts. For instance, take the ministry for Information, Youth, Culture and Sports as a case in point.




Before appointing leaders for the ministry, do we really know the importance of this ministry for the development and improvement of the country’s information network that includes, among others, its delivery to the masses, the development of the country’s cultural outlook?




Do we consider the importance of this ministry for getting roadmap for the development of our youth apart from simply referring their present joblessness as time bomb?




Do we consider the importance of sports development from grass-root level as one of the areas that those we would be putting in the ministry as experts would help us in ensuring such development?




Do we take a hard look before we start looking for coaches for our respective soccer clubs or it’s just a question of business as usual? Honest response to the foregoing questions is very important in getting Tanzania out of its present sporting rut.




Tanzania, and in particular, sports clubs and institutions need to start scouting for indigenous sports experts before they start looking for such experts from abroad.




We need to ask ourselves hard questions whether or not our sporting problems can only be cured through the provision of a foreign coach. We need to get away from a situation where we bring foreign coaches more as vogue rather than for their value for money.




In conclusion, it’s perhaps important to remind ourselves that the first and last time we reached the final of the CAF Cup was in 1993, and the club was Simba Sports under the tutelage of a local coach by the name of Abdallah ‘King Mputa’ Kibadeni. Let’s think hard on that.