bureaucracy and hold it effectively to account. Similarly, while it
has certainly embodied many of the best instincts. and most
genuine interests of the masses, it has been somewhat less suc-
cessful in developing the organisational capacity and methods of
political work which would really guarantee the mobilisation and
self-expression of an active, highly-conscious and militant mass
base for Tanzanian socialism. However, it is also eminently clear
that any progress which Tanzania makes in these spheres of
ideological elaboration and organisational creativity can be ex-
pected to affect the functioning of the parastatals in dramatic
ways. And these are by no means static variables; that is why we
will have to return to such questions in Section IV, after a closer
look, in the next two sections, at the parastatals themselves.

I1 The Planning and Control of Parastatals

We have seen that the importance of the parastatals lies not so
much in their share of total national production as in the
generation and, more especially in the use of investible surplusses.
As noted earlier their current activities wili therefore be crucial in
shaping future economic structure of Tanzania, in determining the
speed and nature of the development of the whole economy. For
that reason their activities must be carefully planned and con-
trolled to ensure their maximum contribution to the socialist trans-
formation of the economy. But while some progress has been
made, the intergration of the parastatals into the planning system
has not proved to be an easy task. There are several reasons for
this. To begin with, the planning system itself was not set up to
deal with a large publicly owned modern sector and has ex-
perienced difficulty in accommodating it. Secondly, the parastatals
themselves have not found it easy to plan and have often both
resented and resisted the discipline that effective planning and
control entail. Thirdly, there has so far been a failure to chart out a
long-term national development strategy into which parastatal ac-
tivities should fit and against which their policies and per-
formances could, in consequence, be judged. These difficulties are
to some extent technical and mechanical ones and are slowly
being tackled but in addition, they also reflect basic ideological
problems of a more intractable character.!?

Before the Arusha Declaration planning in Tanzania, was of a
loose, indicative, nature. Planning of the directly productive sector

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