Prime Minister Kawawa and Africanization
When Nverere resigned he was succeeded as prime minister by Kawawa who had been secretary general and then president of the Tanganyika Federation of Labour and was appointed to the cabinet by Nverere when he became chief minister in September 1960. Kawawa was more oriented to ordinary political considerations than Nverere and less willing to cater to the presumed need to retain expatriate specialists.
He began his term by choosing a number of new ministers whose claim to their positions was based less on their experience than on their political activism—some of it in the form of anti-minority acts and rhetoric. He did keep some of those initially appointed by Nyerere. but he did not reappoint Vasey. anti he saw to it that some of the powers concentrated in the N1inistry of Finance were allocated elsewhere.
In October 1961, before he resigned, mere had made one specific recommendation — that the provincial commissioners, all British, be replaced by regional commissioners, expressly political rather than administrative in character. In February 1962, therefore, acting in consonance with Nyerere's recommendation and" clearly in accordance with his own strong predilections. Kawawa appointed eleven regional commissioners, all TANU activists, most having held high office in the TANU provincial structure.
Later that year he replaced a number of district commissioners with what were now to be called area commissioners, also political men. This was only a part, if an important one, in the Africanization of the government service undertaken during Kawawa's tenure, Basing his program on the recommendations of the Ford Foundation consultants, to which Nyerere had given his assent but had not acted on, Kawawa changed actual practice rapidly.
Heavy emphasis was given in-service training of Africans instead of requiring new civil servants to have the same credentials as those demanded earlier, and secondary school graduates were carefully allocated to jobs reflecting government priorities. Further the role of district officer, formerly entailing diverse duties, was broken into several components to which different persons were assigned, thus allowing individuals without university training to cope with them. Finally a commission was instituted to see to it that Africanization affected every aspect of the civil service. Despite this significant change in emphasis and the rise of the number of Africans in government service, in general the number of expatriate officials did not diminish rapidly.
Kawawa was particularly concerned to Africanize those positions that were highly visible politically, thus his replacement of largely British provincial and district commissioners by African regional and area commissioners. He also quickly replaced the permanent secretaries of the ministries with Africans. Finally, triggered by a conflict between Kawawa and the British Commissioner of Police. the officer ranks of the police service, hitherto very largely non-African, were rapidly Africanized.
Just as Kawawa was less reluctant than Nyerere to Africanize the government service, he was more reluctant to tolerate external criticism. Differences within the leadership were permitted expression, hut strong criticism from outsiders seen as contenders for power was disliked. Among the chief sources of external criticism were some of the leaders of independent unions not under the direct control of Kawawa and his colleagues.
The battle may have been simply a struggle for power between two groups of union leaders, but the ideological terms in which the battle was carried out were of long-run importance for the role of unions and other groups in Tanzanian society. Those union leaders in the cabinet argued that the main task of the unions was to support TANU and the government and to cooperate in the drive to increase production. The outsiders claimed that their chief function was to fight for the economic interests of the workers.
Given Kawawa's position in TAN U and the government, he was able, in various was, to render the opposition impotent. Among these were laws forbidding the participation in unions of senior civil servants, severely restricting the right to strike and bolstering the position of the Tanganyika Federation of Labour and weakening that of the independent unions. Finally, the Preventive Detention Act of September 1962 gave the government considerable power to control opposition.
Kawawa coupled these restrictive acts with the introduction of material benefits to ordinary union members. In January 1963 a minimum wage improved the situation of the lowest paid workers and was the base on which a generally higher wage structure was erected. Other benefits were also forthcoming.
In general, and despite the restrictive laws, the speeding up of Africanization and the granting of material benefits to wage workers helped considerably to mitigate the dissatisfactions of many Africans. The increased wages for largely urban workers were, however, to contribute to a problem that Nyerere would have to cope with later — the increasing discrepancy between urban and rural levels of income and the pull that higher wages exerted on rural migrants.
In this period too Tanganyika changed its formal status. The 1961 constitution, prepared by the British, had defined Tanganyika as a dominion, and its head of state remained the queen, represented by a governor general. In November 1962 Tanganyika became a republic and ended its status as a dominion, although it remained a member of the Commonwealth. The constitution of that year established a president as head of the republic.
In Prates words "the main thrust of policy under Kawawa was nationalist and oligarchic, not radical or socialist." That thrust conformed to the values of a new African political elite but not necessarily to those of Nyerere. Indeed his teaching had had little effect on most other party leaders or on ordinary Africans, although a few young people attempted, with some initial success, to establish the kind of community he seemed to he calling for.
In these circumstances Nyerere could make an impact only by returning to the government. On December 9, 1962, an election for the presidency was won overwhelmingly by Nyerere, and he became the first president of the republic.
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