Local Government in Tanzania and the Legacy of a Faulty Takeoff

Abstract

While local governments in Tanzania have existed for more than a century, their relationship with the central government has been onesided; with the latter surviving at the mercy of the former. Such an imbalanced relationship notwithstanding, numerous interventions seeking to make local governments more autonomous have been introduced but none of them has managed to resolve the situation. This paper posits that the failure of these interventions stems from a flawed formation of local governments devoid of active players to push for autonomy thus granting absolute latitude to the centre to dictate the functioning of local governments. As various measures for ensuring effective functioning of local government continue to be undertaken under the auspices of the central government, parallel measures  seeking to increase the voice of other actors at the grassroots need to be given adequate attention.  *Lecturer, Dar es Salaam University College of Education, E-mail: babeiyae@yahoo.co.uk