Mckinsey and other consultants have a great deal of power with
little or no responsibility and that it is almost impossible, in prac-
tice, to gauge the impact of their advice on a company’s sub-
sequent performance. This is, of great relevance in Tanzania
where the State Trading Corporation proved to be a costly failure
after Mckinsey had been heavily involved in setting up
management and control systems. This corporation is now being
completely reorganised and decentralised and one is left won-
dering whether this was necessary because of or in-spite of Mckin-
: sey involvement.
In defence of consultants against some of the above criticisms
: and doubts, there are those who argue that ‘anyone who has had
experience with (consultants) would know that their recom-
mendations are not imposed on their principals and that their job
p is only to offer a possible solution to the organisation’.?® This is
true in theory, but in reality, one wonders how much detailed
scrutiny of proposal one can expect from part-time overworked
and frequently non-technocratic boards of directors, what alter-
natives they can be expected to perceive, and how critical they are
likely to be, having taken the decision to spend so much on con-
sultancy services.

It is, therefore, our belief that too much confidence is placed in
overseas consultants and far too little confidence in the ability of
parastatal management and workers to set up their own systems
and to solve their own problems. Several of the more successful
parastatals such as the banks, the Sisal Corporation and the
Milling Corporation have managed very well without the service
of foreign consultants and have made only minimal use of foreign
management personnel.?” They have set up their own systems,
have good worker/manager relations and, even if this is no sure
guarantee of their having a clearer ideological perspective than
other institutions, they have at least succeeded in reducing
significantly their dependence on foreign manpower.

Foreign management is usually part and parcel of package deals
involving machinery and raw material supplies, and product pur-
chases, and loan or equity participation by foreign manufacturers.
The terms on which foreign participation is acquired are usually
formalised into a management agreement — a legal contract bet-

; ween the parties involved. These agreements have attracted a
good deal of hostile criticism in recent years largely because

 

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