was virtually non-existent because this sector was almost entirely
privately owned. What passed for planning was therefore simply
the ‘guesstimation’ of how much government thought this sector
might produce, save, invest, and import. At the same time central
government activities which were carefully budgeted for were
almost equally unplanned for there was little detailed scrutiny of
projects at the appraisal, implementation or follow-up stages and
no clear investment criteria by which to rank and select projects.
The budget and the financial process therefore, dominated the so
called ‘planning process’.!® As a result, and especially since it did
not control the purse strings, the planning ministry was most inef-
fective.

There was insufficient time after the Arusha Declaration to
achieve any fundamental improvements in public sector planning
which could be embodied in the Second Five-Year Plan. The
result was that parastatal plans consisted of lists of projects —
unappraised, uncoordinated and with no indication of detailed
sources of finance. Even where more information was forth-
coming there was for many years a reluctance on the part of
parastatals to make this available to the Planning Ministry and no
machinery for ensuring that such information would automatically
flow to the centre. The reluctance stemmed partly from a lack of
clarity in the delineation of responsibilities between parastatal
boards of directors and the other planning bodies — the sectoral
ministries, Devplan and Treasury and partly from a failure on the
part of parastatal management to appreciate the importance of
planning. Until quite recently the management of parastatals
resented any outside ‘interference’ in the running of their firms and
since they had no clear-out national plans to follow nor any
serious shortages of finance they were able for some time, to
withstand pressures from the planning machinery. The inadequate
coverage of the parastatals in the Second Five-Year Plan provided,
in effect, the justification for parastatals resisting later attempts to
incorporate their activities into the planning machinery itself.

It should also be pointed out that neither Devplan nor the sec-
toral ministries have had sufficient skilled manpower to enable
careful scrutiny of parastatal activities so that Parastatals have
complained, with some justification, of bureaucratic delays in their
dealings with them. Sectoral ministries in particular have failed to
build up cadres of competent staff and have as a result been

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