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Benjamin Barton delves into stalled BPP talks, revealing Magufuli’s strategic blend of developmentalism, nationalism, and authoritarianism to conceal electoral vulnerabilities.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 4, 2024

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The Bagga Mo Port Project (BPP) is a major initiative in Tanzania involving a tripartite agreement among the Tanzanian state, a Chinese state-owned company, China Merchants Holding International, and the Oman Sovereign Reserve. This video video project aims to alleviate congestion and operational issues at the existing major port in Dar es Salaam, which has faced significant challenges, including security concerns and inefficiencies in the transit of goods.

Initially proposed as a transformative development, there were visions of Bagga Moyo becoming a major port that could rival Mombasa in Kenya, potentially reshaping East Africa's economic landscape. The project drew attention during the presidency of Jakaya Kikwete, who signed a framework agreement in 2013 coinciding with China's Belt and Road Initiative.

However, after John Magufuli became president in 2015, he adopted a more assertive stance regarding foreign investment, demanding better terms from the BPP's investors. This video video included calls for increased taxes and shorter lease durations, while also criticizing the monopoly that foreign companies, particularly the Chinese, were perceived to have on Tanzanian port infrastructure.

Magufuli’s administration emphasized anti-corruption and sought to enhance national control over development projects, reflecting a political narrative aimed at building his credibility with Tanzanian citizens. His approach yielded mixed results, causing delays and renegotiations that created tensions around the port's construction.

Following Magufuli's death in 2021, his successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, took a more conciliatory approach, allowing construction to resume smoothly. This video video shift highlighted the dynamic political context influencing project developments and indicated potential changes in direction for future infrastructure initiatives under the Tanzanian government.

Overall, the BPP exemplifies the complexities of large infrastructural projects within Africa and the varying degrees of agency exercised by local governments in dealings with foreign investors, particularly in the context of China's Belt and Road Initiative. It underscores how political developments and leadership styles can profoundly influence project trajectories and their ultimate success.

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The BPP is the Bagga Mo Port Project,

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which is a tripartite agreement between the Tanzanian State,

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a Chinese,

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state-owned company called China

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Merchants Holding International.

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And, the ani, sovereign Reserve.

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So the, the, the company which deals, with that for the

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state, they got together, effectively

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to address the demand coming from Tanzania,

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and the Tanzanian State to build, a new port

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to support effectively the existing port,

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major port in the country, which is that

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of D Aldi capital of Tanzania.

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Um, that Port had faced a number

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of issues over the past few years, such

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as congestion issues, issues pertaining to, SOPs

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and the operationalization of the transit of goods in

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and outta the port, security corruption, afflicted

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with many of the issues which have kind of undermined,

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other ports in the global south than

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on the African continent.

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So, Bagga Moyo is actually a, it's more of a kind

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of touristy destination.

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It's a city with, quite a bit of history.

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Um, it's not a major port city,

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or at least it, it wasn't up until the discussion started,

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in the kinda mid naughties, over the possibility of,

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of, converting Bagga Moyo into a fully fledged port.

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Some said that it would become,

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because the project is estimated to around, $10 billion,

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so that it would become the new, Dubai of East Africa,

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and it would rival the, the, the biggest port in the region,

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which is Mombasa in Kenya.

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Um, so that's the way that it was pitched,

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and the rationale behind it.

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Now, the leader in Tanzania who pushed for this was,

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ti who was, the president in

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and around, the, the, the initial negotiations.

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Um, he had, broached the Chinese government

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and, Chinese construction companies about the

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possibility of, of, setting this up.

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Um, and he actually would then lay the kind

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of foundational stone.

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So, there was a framework agreement signed in 2013

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during President Xi Jinping's, maiden year as

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as president of China, the same year, the launch

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of the Belt and Road Initiative

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and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative.

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Um, and once, president Xi had visited Tanzania,

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they signed off on the framework agreement.

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And two years later, in 2015, president Kikwete,

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lays the foundational stone to the project.

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So, at that point, it seems like, you know,

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this is the early years of the BRI,

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yet another mega project, on the African continent,

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to promote the BRI.

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And it looks like it's a very seamless

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and smooth, process.

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However, that's when, things get complicated

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because in October, 2015, John Magley is elected,

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as president in Tanzania.

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Uh, Magley was something of a maverick, something

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of an outsider from the kind of political

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and economic elite, which has run Tanzania from independence

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until 2015.

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Of course, he, he didn't just emanate from, from nowhere.

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He was, he had a long career in politics.

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He had been a minister, but still relatively low key.

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And, he, was,

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running for the position of president against,

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Edward Loa, who was seen

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as the favorite within the, the ruling party.

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So, Tanzania is a, a multi-party democracy,

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but it's effectively, effectively a single party state.

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Um, so he was seen as a second favorite,

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but he ended up winning

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because he had a, a very clear, kind

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of narrative, which was to kind of clean up the states

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to make it more optim.

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One, to make it more performing for the needs

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of ordinary citizens, mostly by going

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after corruption, whether corruption originating internally

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or as a derivative of foreign investment.

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The reason behind the, the decision to request

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for a new port to the Bagga Mo Airport Project,

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the number one reason was that according

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to the Tanzanian State and a number of, reports

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and findings, which had been published around the, kind

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of the efficiency of the existing port in d Dala,

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which is the capital of Tanzania, that port was afflicted

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with issues of, saturation

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of the port infrastructure of congestion.

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Uh, sometimes it, it would take up to 20 hours for goods

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to be moved in and out to the port.

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There were concerns about security,

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about corruption effectively, a number of the issues

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and constraints afflicting, ports in the global South

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and on the African continent.

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So the feeling was that by building a new port,

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this would help to alleviate some of that congestion

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and make, the movement

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and transit of goods, more effective.

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Now, not everyone was in agreement with that

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because, some studies were published by academics,

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but also by, consultants

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and, representative

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of multilateral banks from the World Bank of the IMF stating

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that all the Dari alarm port needed was an upgrade so

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that it could, welcome kind of super sized tankers,

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and, and containers, in the birth of, of the ports,

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that it simply needed, you know, to, to widen some

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of those berths to allow for those, super tankers

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to, to move in and out.

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Um, now what the Bagga Model Port Project offered,

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which is slightly different to the existing infrastructure,

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is the kind of model, which is one which has been famed by,

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China merchants in China, in the city of Shenzhen.

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So it's not just a port, it's a port

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with a special economic zone adjacent to it,

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and basically a small city built in

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and around the port to facilitate the movement of,

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labor in and outta the port.

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And that is usually linked up to existing infrastructure

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to facilitate the movement

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of goods in land in the hinterland, usually,

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via railway, but also, connecting to the kind

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of existing motorway and road structures.

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So, That's perhaps the,

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the difference comparing the two situations is

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that Bagga Moyo wouldn't just be there to alleviate the

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pressure on the existing port of Dari.

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It was also there, to offer something new and,

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and to tap into the expertise that

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Chinese,

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Maritime companies have developed over the years

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of building these kind of very well integrated structures,

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which have worked so well in Shezhen

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and other parts of China, and which have allowed China

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effectively to be the world's, number one kind

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of manufacturer.

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And, you know, the most important

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play in global supply chain. This

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Was really, president Kiwi's

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pet project to start with.

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So from the mid ties until, the end

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of this term in 2015, I guess just to provide some,

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some background context on this,

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Kriti emerged from the political

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and economic elite within the dominant party.

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So Tanzania is a multi-party state since 19 19 92,

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but it's effectively, effectively dominated

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by one single party.

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So the rulership of the country emanates from that party.

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Um, over the course of his two terms,

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he grew gradually unpopular

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because there were many accusations leveled at him, notably

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of cases of corruption.

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Um, now Tanzania should be noted

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that since independence has moved from a very state centric,

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economy to, in the 1980s

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and 1990s, kind of liberalizing under the, well ages

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to put it nicely of advice

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and structural adjustment coming from the World Bank

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and the IMF to, to force effectively Tanzania to privatize,

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to open up its markets and to scale back the state in the,

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the, the period from the two thousands till 2015.

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Uh, Kikwete is in a situation where he's been part of that,

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movement of, you know, kind

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of deregulating the state's involvement in the economy.

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And what that's done is that it has made

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that elite more powerful and richer,

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but for the general Tanzanian

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populates, they've been left behind.

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So, in fact, if you compare back to the early years of,

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independence in Tanzania, per capita income has, has,

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regressed and unemployment has gone up,

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and the general sense is that the quality

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of life has also been on the decline.

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So not only is he being accused of, of,

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of acting in a corrupt fashion,

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but he's also seen as part of

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that transition in the eighties

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and nineties towards, greater privatization.

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Now in 2015, he's come to the end of his term

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and he's going to be replaced,

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and the feeling is he's gonna be replaced

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by someone very much like him,

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his former prime minister in this, in the, Edward Loa.

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So who is, who is expected to effectively, replace him.

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Um, and Loa is seen as, as coming from, you know,

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the same kind of social economic background,

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but, much against the odds.

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John Magley, who has been in government for a long time

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and has got quite a lot of experience politically,

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but remains a fairly low key

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and marginal figure, ends up winning.

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And he wins because he's got a fairly

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straightforward message, which is that he's going

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to kind aggressively curve corruption in Tanzania

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and it's gonna attack it head on now to give, you know,

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some, I mean, the legacy of this kind

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of anti-corruption drive does emanate from the latter years

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of the Kuwaiti regime, where there's a feeling

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that the Tanzanian state needed to do more to correct some

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of the ills of the market, and to kind of scale back

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and roll back that ardent privatization

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of the eighties and nineties.

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So the Tanzanian states starts to move towards a kind

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of a lesser degree of state developmentalism,

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where the state is more actively involved in the economy

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and is there to kind of even the playing field,

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and make sure that the rules are respected, notably

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for the protection of certain sectors

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of the Tanzanian labor market.

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So Mag Foley rides that wave.

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In fact, he just goes up a couple of years.

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He really makes it, you know, his identity,

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as the strong man who's going to

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lead the enforcement enforce

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and, you know, protect the Tanzanian people from the ills,

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of the past

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and of the kind of unfettered, unregulated markets.

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Um, so he positions himself, in that way,

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and in his first term, he's relatively successful.

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In fact, in carrying this up, he's able, notably

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with dealing with big mining companies,

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which are usually foreign, in this case,

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Barrick dol, which is a, a, a large Canadian multinational,

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specialized in mining, he's able not only to get them

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to kind of renegotiate the terms they've signed

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to undertake their, their industries in Tanzania,

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but he's able to get them to make a greater contribution

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to the Tanzanian state.

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So in fact, he negotiates a, a 300 billion, sorry,

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300 million, US payment from Barett Gold

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to the Tanzanian State.

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And as a result, you know, that kind of lives up

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to his mantra of the, as the man of the people, you know,

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who's able to kind of, grapple back, you know,

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something for the Tanzanian state

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and the Tanzanian people against this, you know, unfettered,

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capitalism, which has dominated the political

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economy for the past two decades.

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So, to bring this back to the Bagga Moyo Pork Project,

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because of that early success in the extractive industries

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in mining and in oil

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and gas, Magaly intends

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to do the same in the realm of infrastructure.

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So in this case, in 2015, he starts

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to make life very difficult for

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that tripartite association I mentioned at the very

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beginning between the Tanzanian State China merchants

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and the Oman Sovereign Reserve, by making a host

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of demands, which are very similar to the kind

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of demands he was making from the actors in the extractive

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industries by saying, you know, for instance, that they had

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to pay more tax, that the deal which was agreed,

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was basically allowing them to not pay any tax,

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that they had to pay utilities at the market rate,

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and that they wouldn't be subsidized by the state.

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Um, the, the 99 year lease,

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which was originally signed was far too long, even though

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that's kind of the standard,

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in global markets when it comes to, leases on,

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the operationalization and management of ports,

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arguing instead that 33 years would be much better suited.

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And I think most importantly of all, he was arguing

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that the deal in place was, allowing China merchants

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to have a monopoly over port infrastructure construction

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in Tanzania, saying that, you know,

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until the Bagga Moyo Port project was built

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and launched, that the Tanzanian State would be,

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handcuffed in terms of investments into its

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port infrastructure.

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And that's similar to the kind of things that we've heard,

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elsewhere on the African continent, notably in.

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So, he came with this five point plan, you know, stating

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that if these investors,

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these foreign investors did not abide by them,

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then the government would effectively cancel the project.

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So there was this, back

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and forth over the period of,

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of six years from the beginnings of his term in 2015,

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all the way up till his debt in 2021,

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whereby he kept making these demands and these threats,

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and, you know, it's either that the foreign investors agree

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to them,

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or if they don't, then the project is jeopardized again.

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So, the, the project underwent several phases of,

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negotiations coming to a head,

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and then there's an agreement

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the construction can start again

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before Magley would, would then use this for his own game,

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up until, his, his unexpected

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and sudden passing in 2021.

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And what's been interesting is from that,

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that period onwards, the current, president,

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which is President Hassan,

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who was MAGA Foley's Prime Minister almost immediately

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after his death, kind of rolled back on this kind

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of strong arm tactics, which Maf Foolie had been employing

13:55.185 --> 13:56.725
to say to the investors, look,

13:56.745 --> 13:58.125
we want this project to happen.

13:58.225 --> 14:02.125
And in fact, construction has now started, as of 2023,

14:02.185 --> 14:05.085
and we expect the Port Project to be finalized without any,

14:05.385 --> 14:08.285
further delay caused by, you know, kind

14:08.285 --> 14:09.925
of protracted talks between the state

14:10.385 --> 14:12.205
and, the companies in charge

14:12.205 --> 14:13.405
of building it and managing it.

14:13.545 --> 14:16.165
The paper argues, that there's perhaps three ways

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of looking at this,

14:19.185 --> 14:21.645
but in fact, ultimately it comes down

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to short-term political opportunism,

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and I'll come back to that at the end.

14:25.425 --> 14:29.005
So the, the way that I pitched this in the, in the paper is

14:29.005 --> 14:32.725
that you could argue that Maga Foley was, took a leaf out

14:32.725 --> 14:35.565
of Julius Nire, who was the first,

14:35.715 --> 14:37.925
Tanzanian president in a post-colonial context,

14:37.925 --> 14:39.765
and who is revered in Tanzania

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and across the African continent,

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I think even in the global south, as one

14:43.605 --> 14:46.965
of these standout leaders from the third world in the 1960s,

14:47.665 --> 14:50.405
who had a clear plan of what he wanted for his country

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and was going to implement it, you know, come what may,

14:53.345 --> 14:56.165
and he had a very strong kind of socialist autocentric view.

14:56.665 --> 14:59.405
Uh, and so the, the feeling is that Magley took a leaf out

14:59.405 --> 15:02.045
of his book in order to shore up his own credibility,

15:02.185 --> 15:05.645
but also beca because this reflected his own vision of how,

15:06.025 --> 15:08.245
society should be organized in Tanzania,

15:08.245 --> 15:09.765
that the state should play a strong role

15:09.785 --> 15:11.445
and should not play a kind of background role.

15:11.785 --> 15:14.405
And that, you know, investors, whether they're, domestic

15:14.545 --> 15:17.525
or foreign, you know, should play by the walls of the game

15:17.585 --> 15:18.765
as they're clearly established

15:18.825 --> 15:21.165
and should not bend the rules for their own benefit.

15:21.825 --> 15:24.245
The second way of looking at this is that,

15:25.075 --> 15:28.645
this autocentric approach is very closely tied

15:28.645 --> 15:31.165
to a highly nationalistic view that, you know,

15:31.165 --> 15:34.725
the Tanzanian state, and Tanzanian identity comes first

15:34.905 --> 15:37.045
and should not be eroded in any shape or form.

15:37.625 --> 15:39.685
Um, and so the feeling is

15:39.685 --> 15:42.645
that Mag Foolie may have been quite xenophobic in his

15:42.805 --> 15:44.885
approach that he was targeting in

15:44.885 --> 15:46.205
particular foreign investors.

15:46.345 --> 15:48.445
So I mentioned the extractive industries.

15:48.665 --> 15:50.885
He dealt with Canadian companies,

15:51.345 --> 15:53.645
in the infrastructure realm, he's dealing with,

15:53.645 --> 15:55.885
Chinese investors and investors from Oman.

15:56.305 --> 15:58.445
Um, and that in fact, this,

15:58.595 --> 16:01.165
autocentric approach is in fact, a cover

16:01.425 --> 16:04.765
for a very highly nationalistic, approach, which is

16:04.765 --> 16:06.965
of course designed to boost his own popularity.

16:07.505 --> 16:09.685
And the third element is that,

16:09.755 --> 16:13.885
Mara Foolie was not afraid of using instruments to,

16:14.585 --> 16:17.245
to become, to, to be elected also to stay in power,

16:17.495 --> 16:19.445
which was somewhat un unorthodox, meaning

16:19.445 --> 16:21.125
that Tanzania is a democracy.

16:21.345 --> 16:24.125
But Mara Foolie was using the instruments of the state

16:24.585 --> 16:26.925
to shore up his, his own standing.

16:27.385 --> 16:30.165
Um, and that went from, acquisitions

16:30.165 --> 16:33.085
of electoral rigging all the way to, you know,

16:33.085 --> 16:37.165
using the state's, apparatus, in a violent fashion

16:37.585 --> 16:40.405
to undercut the opposition to sometimes,

16:40.635 --> 16:43.125
eradicate them completely from the political scene

16:43.385 --> 16:44.485
and to chase them away.

16:44.905 --> 16:46.565
Um, and so the feeling is that in the context

16:46.625 --> 16:49.845
of the Bagga Moyo Port Project, the Magaly is ready

16:50.185 --> 16:51.685
to use a state apparatus

16:51.685 --> 16:53.885
to effectively walk all over the deal up

16:53.885 --> 16:56.565
until it reaches a point where he's satisfied

16:56.835 --> 16:58.045
with what he's got out of it.

16:58.585 --> 17:02.405
So the, the, the paper then, transposes each

17:02.405 --> 17:06.125
of these different lenses onto the negotiations,

17:06.195 --> 17:09.365
over this kind of stalled agreement on, on Bagga Moyo.

17:09.705 --> 17:11.925
And the finding is that in each case, you can kind

17:11.925 --> 17:12.965
of debunk the argument.

17:12.965 --> 17:15.165
So if I come back to the point about mega Foolie being

17:15.165 --> 17:18.525
xenophobic or anti-China, if you look, if you pitch

17:18.525 --> 17:22.925
that against his broader, successes and,

17:22.925 --> 17:26.725
and failures, as part of his term as president, well,

17:27.205 --> 17:29.365
actually Magaly wasn't particularly anti-China.

17:29.745 --> 17:32.685
Uh, there are other components of his time as as president,

17:32.685 --> 17:34.885
which highlight in fact that he had a relatively,

17:34.885 --> 17:37.765
he held relatively positive view of, of China.

17:38.025 --> 17:40.885
In fact, foreign investment played a key role in the five

17:41.035 --> 17:44.445
year, economic plan which the state had devised,

17:44.465 --> 17:47.525
and which, Maga fully oversaw as president.

17:47.545 --> 17:49.005
So that argument kind

17:49.085 --> 17:52.525
of doesn't really necessarily fit the one about the,

17:52.875 --> 17:54.045
autocentric development

17:54.045 --> 17:57.485
and state Developmentalism, also finds limitations,

17:57.485 --> 17:59.885
because ultimately, in the point that I'm trying

17:59.885 --> 18:03.405
to make here is that Magaly only wanted to use this example

18:03.405 --> 18:04.885
of Bagga Moyo in the same way

18:04.885 --> 18:09.005
that he did in the successes he saw by forcing,

18:09.005 --> 18:10.605
actors in the extractive industries

18:10.825 --> 18:12.565
to sit down at the negotiation table

18:12.905 --> 18:14.965
and hash out the deal, which he could then use

18:15.025 --> 18:17.885
as political capital for his own, purpose.

18:18.345 --> 18:21.045
And that was because he came from the kind

18:21.045 --> 18:22.845
of periphery the margins of the elite.

18:22.845 --> 18:26.685
And so he felt the need to shore up his electoral base A,

18:26.685 --> 18:28.285
within the party, and b,

18:28.285 --> 18:30.045
towards the Tanzania people as a whole.

18:30.265 --> 18:32.645
So effectively he was just using,

18:32.815 --> 18:35.805
these protracted talks whether they would be successful

18:35.825 --> 18:37.485
or not, for his own benefit.

18:37.625 --> 18:39.005
He was just, you know, one way

18:39.005 --> 18:40.845
or the other, he was gonna come out on top.

18:41.105 --> 18:42.605
And it, it just boils down

18:42.865 --> 18:46.405
to nothing more than short term, political gain.

18:46.405 --> 18:50.405
And I mean, the fact that the, the, the, his successor,

18:50.785 --> 18:54.045
you know, almost immediately changed this Tanzanian state's,

18:54.105 --> 18:57.885
agenda on the Bagga Mario Port Project speaks volumes

18:57.885 --> 18:59.885
of the fact that Mago freely was clearly just using this

18:59.885 --> 19:01.005
for his own political gain.

19:01.205 --> 19:03.005
I want to kind of broaden this out a little bit

19:03.005 --> 19:05.965
because my interest has been to look, at the rollout

19:05.965 --> 19:08.685
of the Belt Road Initiative, on the African continent,

19:08.685 --> 19:10.805
but more specifically to look at perhaps,

19:11.245 --> 19:13.685
projects which have been a bit more complicated, have had,

19:13.715 --> 19:17.405
have been troublesome, in their, implementation.

19:17.865 --> 19:20.325
Uh, and that is because I think that the,

19:20.325 --> 19:22.325
the more complex projects

19:22.425 --> 19:25.165
or case studies, teach us,

19:25.165 --> 19:27.405
quite a bit about the real dynamics,

19:27.485 --> 19:29.085
undergirding BRI projects.

19:29.085 --> 19:31.845
So the, the general sense is that, if you look at kind

19:31.845 --> 19:34.085
of general outside commentary on the BRI,

19:34.085 --> 19:37.005
particularly in I think Western commentary is there's,

19:37.005 --> 19:40.485
there's a tendency to think that the BRI is a very unlinear,

19:40.905 --> 19:43.405
smooth, streamlined initiative coming outta

19:43.405 --> 19:45.165
Beijing designed top down.

19:45.625 --> 19:47.325
And so all the emphasis,

19:47.705 --> 19:49.925
all the control comes on the Chinese side.

19:49.945 --> 19:51.725
But in fact, for those,

19:51.725 --> 19:53.965
scholars who've looked into the specifics of projects,

19:54.265 --> 19:56.205
you realize quite quickly that it doesn't work like that.

19:56.395 --> 19:59.005
It's much more complex, it's much more nuanced

19:59.005 --> 20:01.685
because it involves a whole host of stakeholders, many

20:01.685 --> 20:04.085
of whom are based outside of CH of China

20:04.105 --> 20:05.485
and who have their own agendas.

20:05.945 --> 20:08.845
So the, the question here is about African political agency,

20:09.345 --> 20:10.645
because of course,

20:10.645 --> 20:12.725
if we look at this from a very traditional point of view,

20:12.745 --> 20:14.805
if you compare China to Africa,

20:14.805 --> 20:16.885
and you talk about power asymmetries, well,

20:16.885 --> 20:19.445
obviously everyone would assume that, you know, the,

20:19.465 --> 20:22.045
the power balance benefits China to the detriment

20:22.045 --> 20:25.125
of African stakeholders, especially since Africa seldom

20:25.125 --> 20:27.005
deals with China in a collective fashion.

20:27.115 --> 20:29.005
It's always bilateral interaction.

20:29.065 --> 20:30.685
So, you know, China, Tanzania,

20:30.905 --> 20:33.565
the sense is while China will always get its way, and,

20:33.565 --> 20:35.645
and the fact is in this project, that's not the case.

20:36.145 --> 20:38.165
Um, now no matter, you know,

20:38.165 --> 20:40.485
what criticism you can level at MAGA foolie of

20:40.625 --> 20:41.685
how erratic he was

20:41.705 --> 20:45.045
and how he just use this for his own gain, that aside,

20:45.515 --> 20:47.845
what this demonstrates is that there is such a thing

20:47.845 --> 20:49.245
as African political agency,

20:49.585 --> 20:52.845
and it does go some way in impacting, you know, the,

20:52.865 --> 20:55.325
the success rate of BRI projects.

20:55.325 --> 20:59.005
And I think that this now, it really does speak,

20:59.035 --> 21:00.885
volumes too because of the kind

21:00.885 --> 21:03.805
of narrative which is being spun in Beijing about the future

21:03.905 --> 21:06.685
of the BRI from the last BRI forum.

21:07.025 --> 21:09.405
The leadership in China is stressing the fact that many

21:09.405 --> 21:12.485
of these projects or future projects are, you know,

21:12.535 --> 21:13.565
small is beautiful.

21:13.985 --> 21:16.125
Uh, gone are the days of, you know,

21:16.405 --> 21:18.925
spending willy-nilly on white elephant projects,

21:18.925 --> 21:20.765
sustainability with a financial, social,

21:20.905 --> 21:23.525
or environmental become poor criteria.

21:23.665 --> 21:25.245
And I think there's gonna be quite a bit

21:25.245 --> 21:27.085
of pressure on Chinese policy, banks

21:27.085 --> 21:29.845
and construction companies to really pay heed to the fact

21:29.845 --> 21:31.205
that they need to be a lot more careful

21:31.625 --> 21:34.285
and scrutinize more closely, the kind

21:34.285 --> 21:35.365
of projects that they're involved in.

21:35.365 --> 21:38.005
And I think that some of the drama which has been attached

21:38.005 --> 21:40.565
to a handful of projects, is enough

21:40.565 --> 21:43.645
to make the Chinese state doubt that, you know,

21:43.865 --> 21:47.445
the original blueprint of the BRI, it can't continue.

21:47.505 --> 21:48.685
It has to be revised.

21:49.025 --> 21:52.205
Uh, and, and that says, I think a lot for the role that,

21:52.225 --> 21:54.485
you know, smaller, weaker states can

21:54.485 --> 21:55.845
have in the formulation.

21:56.385 --> 21:58.485
Um, and the ultimate success

21:58.665 --> 21:59.885
of the Belt and Road Initiative.

21:59.905 --> 22:03.045
And this is I think, a very clear, case,

22:03.045 --> 22:03.685
in this regard.

00:00 - The BPP is the Bagga Mo Port Project, which is a tripartite agreement between the Tanzanian State, a Chinese, state-owned company called China Merchants Holding International. And, the ani, sovereign Reserve.

00:15 - So the, the, the company which deals, with that for the state, they got together, effectively to address the demand coming from Tanzania, and the Tanzanian State to build, a new port to support effectively the existing port, major port in the country, which is that of D Aldi capital of Tanzania. that Port had faced a number of issues over the past few years, such as congestion issues, issues pertaining to, SOPs

00:47 - and the operationalization of the transit of goods in and outta the port, security corruption, afflicted with many of the issues which have kind of undermined, other ports in the global south than on the African continent. So, Bagga Moyo is actually a, it's more of a kind of touristy destination. It's a city with, quite a bit of history. it's not a major port city, or at least it, it wasn't up until the discussion started,

01:12 - in the kinda mid naughties, over the possibility of, of, converting Bagga Moyo into a fully fledged port. Some said that it would become, because the project is estimated to around, $10 billion, so that it would become the new, Dubai of East Africa, and it would rival the, the, the biggest port in the region, which is Mombasa in Kenya. so that's the way that it was pitched, and the rationale behind it. Now, the leader in Tanzania who pushed for this was,

01:43 - ti who was, the president in and around, the, the, the initial negotiations. he had, broached the Chinese government and, Chinese construction companies about the possibility of, of, setting this up. and he actually would then lay the kind of foundational stone. So, there was a framework agreement signed in 2013 during President Xi Jinping's, maiden year as as president of China, the same year, the launch

02:14 - of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative. and once, president Xi had visited Tanzania, they signed off on the framework agreement. And two years later, in 2015, president Kikwete, lays the foundational stone to the project. So, at that point, it seems like, you know, this is the early years of the BRI, yet another mega project, on the African continent, to promote the BRI.

02:39 - And it looks like it's a very seamless and smooth, process. However, that's when, things get complicated because in October, 2015, John Magley is elected, as president in Tanzania. Magley was something of a maverick, something of an outsider from the kind of political and economic elite, which has run Tanzania from independence until 2015. Of course, he, he didn't just emanate from, from nowhere.

03:08 - He was, he had a long career in politics. He had been a minister, but still relatively low key. And, he, was, running for the position of president against, Edward Loa, who was seen as the favorite within the, the ruling party. So, Tanzania is a, a multi-party democracy, but it's effectively, effectively a single party state. so he was seen as a second favorite, but he ended up winning

03:36 - because he had a, a very clear, kind of narrative, which was to kind of clean up the states to make it more optim. One, to make it more performing for the needs of ordinary citizens, mostly by going after corruption, whether corruption originating internally or as a derivative of foreign investment. The reason behind the, the decision to request for a new port to the Bagga Mo Airport Project, the number one reason was that according

04:06 - to the Tanzanian State and a number of, reports and findings, which had been published around the, kind of the efficiency of the existing port in d Dala, which is the capital of Tanzania, that port was afflicted with issues of, saturation of the port infrastructure of congestion. sometimes it, it would take up to 20 hours for goods to be moved in and out to the port. There were concerns about security, about corruption effectively, a number of the issues

04:36 - and constraints afflicting, ports in the global South and on the African continent. So the feeling was that by building a new port, this would help to alleviate some of that congestion and make, the movement and transit of goods, more effective. Now, not everyone was in agreement with that because, some studies were published by academics, but also by, consultants and, representative

04:58 - of multilateral banks from the World Bank of the IMF stating that all the Dari alarm port needed was an upgrade so that it could, welcome kind of super sized tankers, and, and containers, in the birth of, of the ports, that it simply needed, you know, to, to widen some of those berths to allow for those, super tankers to, to move in and out. now what the Bagga Model Port Project offered, which is slightly different to the existing infrastructure, is the kind of model, which is one which has been famed by,

05:33 - China merchants in China, in the city of Shenzhen. So it's not just a port, it's a port with a special economic zone adjacent to it, and basically a small city built in and around the port to facilitate the movement of, labor in and outta the port. And that is usually linked up to existing infrastructure to facilitate the movement of goods in land in the hinterland, usually, via railway, but also, connecting to the kind

06:01 - of existing motorway and road structures. So, That's perhaps the, the difference comparing the two situations is that Bagga Moyo wouldn't just be there to alleviate the pressure on the existing port of Dari. It was also there, to offer something new and, and to tap into the expertise that Chinese, Maritime companies have developed over the years of building these kind of very well integrated structures,

06:28 - which have worked so well in Shezhen and other parts of China, and which have allowed China effectively to be the world's, number one kind of manufacturer. And, you know, the most important play in global supply chain. This Was really, president Kiwi's pet project to start with. So from the mid ties until, the end of this term in 2015, I guess just to provide some,

06:49 - some background context on this, Kriti emerged from the political and economic elite within the dominant party. So Tanzania is a multi-party state since 19 19 92, but it's effectively, effectively dominated by one single party. So the rulership of the country emanates from that party. over the course of his two terms, he grew gradually unpopular because there were many accusations leveled at him, notably

07:17 - of cases of corruption. now Tanzania should be noted that since independence has moved from a very state centric, economy to, in the 1980s and 1990s, kind of liberalizing under the, well ages to put it nicely of advice and structural adjustment coming from the World Bank and the IMF to, to force effectively Tanzania to privatize, to open up its markets and to scale back the state in the, the, the period from the two thousands till 2015.

07:51 - Kikwete is in a situation where he's been part of that, movement of, you know, kind of deregulating the state's involvement in the economy. And what that's done is that it has made that elite more powerful and richer, but for the general Tanzanian populates, they've been left behind. So, in fact, if you compare back to the early years of, independence in Tanzania, per capita income has, has, regressed and unemployment has gone up,

08:19 - and the general sense is that the quality of life has also been on the decline. So not only is he being accused of, of, of acting in a corrupt fashion, but he's also seen as part of that transition in the eighties and nineties towards, greater privatization. Now in 2015, he's come to the end of his term and he's going to be replaced, and the feeling is he's gonna be replaced

08:39 - by someone very much like him, his former prime minister in this, in the, Edward Loa. So who is, who is expected to effectively, replace him. and Loa is seen as, as coming from, you know, the same kind of social economic background, but, much against the odds. John Magley, who has been in government for a long time and has got quite a lot of experience politically, but remains a fairly low key and marginal figure, ends up winning.

09:06 - And he wins because he's got a fairly straightforward message, which is that he's going to kind aggressively curve corruption in Tanzania and it's gonna attack it head on now to give, you know, some, I mean, the legacy of this kind of anti-corruption drive does emanate from the latter years of the Kuwaiti regime, where there's a feeling that the Tanzanian state needed to do more to correct some of the ills of the market, and to kind of scale back and roll back that ardent privatization

09:37 - of the eighties and nineties. So the Tanzanian states starts to move towards a kind of a lesser degree of state developmentalism, where the state is more actively involved in the economy and is there to kind of even the playing field, and make sure that the rules are respected, notably for the protection of certain sectors of the Tanzanian labor market. So Mag Foley rides that wave. In fact, he just goes up a couple of years.

10:02 - He really makes it, you know, his identity, as the strong man who's going to lead the enforcement enforce and, you know, protect the Tanzanian people from the ills, of the past and of the kind of unfettered, unregulated markets. so he positions himself, in that way, and in his first term, he's relatively successful. In fact, in carrying this up, he's able, notably with dealing with big mining companies,

10:29 - which are usually foreign, in this case, Barrick dol, which is a, a, a large Canadian multinational, specialized in mining, he's able not only to get them to kind of renegotiate the terms they've signed to undertake their, their industries in Tanzania, but he's able to get them to make a greater contribution to the Tanzanian state. So in fact, he negotiates a, a 300 billion, sorry, 300 million, US payment from Barett Gold to the Tanzanian State.

10:58 - And as a result, you know, that kind of lives up to his mantra of the, as the man of the people, you know, who's able to kind of, grapple back, you know, something for the Tanzanian state and the Tanzanian people against this, you know, unfettered, capitalism, which has dominated the political economy for the past two decades. So, to bring this back to the Bagga Moyo Pork Project, because of that early success in the extractive industries in mining and in oil

11:23 - and gas, Magaly intends to do the same in the realm of infrastructure. So in this case, in 2015, he starts to make life very difficult for that tripartite association I mentioned at the very beginning between the Tanzanian State China merchants and the Oman Sovereign Reserve, by making a host of demands, which are very similar to the kind of demands he was making from the actors in the extractive industries by saying, you know, for instance, that they had

11:51 - to pay more tax, that the deal which was agreed, was basically allowing them to not pay any tax, that they had to pay utilities at the market rate, and that they wouldn't be subsidized by the state. the, the 99 year lease, which was originally signed was far too long, even though that's kind of the standard, in global markets when it comes to, leases on, the operationalization and management of ports, arguing instead that 33 years would be much better suited.

12:18 - And I think most importantly of all, he was arguing that the deal in place was, allowing China merchants to have a monopoly over port infrastructure construction in Tanzania, saying that, you know, until the Bagga Moyo Port project was built and launched, that the Tanzanian State would be, handcuffed in terms of investments into its port infrastructure. And that's similar to the kind of things that we've heard, elsewhere on the African continent, notably in.

12:46 - So, he came with this five point plan, you know, stating that if these investors, these foreign investors did not abide by them, then the government would effectively cancel the project. So there was this, back and forth over the period of, of six years from the beginnings of his term in 2015, all the way up till his debt in 2021, whereby he kept making these demands and these threats, and, you know, it's either that the foreign investors agree

13:13 - to them, or if they don't, then the project is jeopardized again. So, the, the project underwent several phases of, negotiations coming to a head, and then there's an agreement the construction can start again before Magley would, would then use this for his own game, up until, his, his unexpected and sudden passing in 2021. And what's been interesting is from that,

13:39 - that period onwards, the current, president, which is President Hassan, who was MAGA Foley's Prime Minister almost immediately after his death, kind of rolled back on this kind of strong arm tactics, which Maf Foolie had been employing to say to the investors, look, we want this project to happen. And in fact, construction has now started, as of 2023, and we expect the Port Project to be finalized without any, further delay caused by, you know, kind

14:08 - of protracted talks between the state and, the companies in charge of building it and managing it. The paper argues, that there's perhaps three ways of looking at this, but in fact, ultimately it comes down to short-term political opportunism, and I'll come back to that at the end. So the, the way that I pitched this in the, in the paper is that you could argue that Maga Foley was, took a leaf out

14:32 - of Julius Nire, who was the first, Tanzanian president in a post-colonial context, and who is revered in Tanzania and across the African continent, I think even in the global south, as one of these standout leaders from the third world in the 1960s, who had a clear plan of what he wanted for his country and was going to implement it, you know, come what may, and he had a very strong kind of socialist autocentric view. and so the, the feeling is that Magley took a leaf out

14:59 - of his book in order to shore up his own credibility, but also beca because this reflected his own vision of how, society should be organized in Tanzania, that the state should play a strong role and should not play a kind of background role. And that, you know, investors, whether they're, domestic or foreign, you know, should play by the walls of the game as they're clearly established and should not bend the rules for their own benefit. The second way of looking at this is that,

15:25 - this autocentric approach is very closely tied to a highly nationalistic view that, you know, the Tanzanian state, and Tanzanian identity comes first and should not be eroded in any shape or form. and so the feeling is that Mag Foolie may have been quite xenophobic in his approach that he was targeting in particular foreign investors. So I mentioned the extractive industries. He dealt with Canadian companies,

15:51 - in the infrastructure realm, he's dealing with, Chinese investors and investors from Oman. and that in fact, this, autocentric approach is in fact, a cover for a very highly nationalistic, approach, which is of course designed to boost his own popularity. And the third element is that, Mara Foolie was not afraid of using instruments to, to become, to, to be elected also to stay in power, which was somewhat un unorthodox, meaning

16:19 - that Tanzania is a democracy. But Mara Foolie was using the instruments of the state to shore up his, his own standing. and that went from, acquisitions of electoral rigging all the way to, you know, using the state's, apparatus, in a violent fashion to undercut the opposition to sometimes, eradicate them completely from the political scene and to chase them away. and so the feeling is that in the context

16:46 - of the Bagga Moyo Port Project, the Magaly is ready to use a state apparatus to effectively walk all over the deal up until it reaches a point where he's satisfied with what he's got out of it. So the, the, the paper then, transposes each of these different lenses onto the negotiations, over this kind of stalled agreement on, on Bagga Moyo. And the finding is that in each case, you can kind of debunk the argument.

17:12 - So if I come back to the point about mega Foolie being xenophobic or anti-China, if you look, if you pitch that against his broader, successes and, and failures, as part of his term as president, well, actually Magaly wasn't particularly anti-China. there are other components of his time as as president, which highlight in fact that he had a relatively, he held relatively positive view of, of China. In fact, foreign investment played a key role in the five year, economic plan which the state had devised,

17:44 - and which, Maga fully oversaw as president. So that argument kind of doesn't really necessarily fit the one about the, autocentric development and state Developmentalism, also finds limitations, because ultimately, in the point that I'm trying to make here is that Magaly only wanted to use this example of Bagga Moyo in the same way that he did in the successes he saw by forcing, actors in the extractive industries

18:10 - to sit down at the negotiation table and hash out the deal, which he could then use as political capital for his own, purpose. And that was because he came from the kind of periphery the margins of the elite. And so he felt the need to shore up his electoral base A, within the party, and b, towards the Tanzania people as a whole. So effectively he was just using, these protracted talks whether they would be successful

18:35 - or not, for his own benefit. He was just, you know, one way or the other, he was gonna come out on top. And it, it just boils down to nothing more than short term, political gain. And I mean, the fact that the, the, the, his successor, you know, almost immediately changed this Tanzanian state's, agenda on the Bagga Mario Port Project speaks volumes of the fact that Mago freely was clearly just using this for his own political gain.

19:01 - I want to kind of broaden this out a little bit because my interest has been to look, at the rollout of the Belt Road Initiative, on the African continent, but more specifically to look at perhaps, projects which have been a bit more complicated, have had, have been troublesome, in their, implementation. and that is because I think that the, the more complex projects or case studies, teach us, quite a bit about the real dynamics,

19:27 - undergirding BRI projects. So the, the general sense is that, if you look at kind of general outside commentary on the BRI, particularly in I think Western commentary is there's, there's a tendency to think that the BRI is a very unlinear, smooth, streamlined initiative coming outta Beijing designed top down. And so all the emphasis, all the control comes on the Chinese side. But in fact, for those,

19:51 - scholars who've looked into the specifics of projects, you realize quite quickly that it doesn't work like that. It's much more complex, it's much more nuanced because it involves a whole host of stakeholders, many of whom are based outside of CH of China and who have their own agendas. So the, the question here is about African political agency, because of course, if we look at this from a very traditional point of view, if you compare China to Africa,

20:14 - and you talk about power asymmetries, well, obviously everyone would assume that, you know, the, the power balance benefits China to the detriment of African stakeholders, especially since Africa seldom deals with China in a collective fashion. It's always bilateral interaction. So, you know, China, Tanzania, the sense is while China will always get its way, and, and the fact is in this project, that's not the case. now no matter, you know,

20:38 - what criticism you can level at MAGA foolie of how erratic he was and how he just use this for his own gain, that aside, what this demonstrates is that there is such a thing as African political agency, and it does go some way in impacting, you know, the, the success rate of BRI projects. And I think that this now, it really does speak, volumes too because of the kind of narrative which is being spun in Beijing about the future

21:03 - of the BRI from the last BRI forum. The leadership in China is stressing the fact that many of these projects or future projects are, you know, small is beautiful. gone are the days of, you know, spending willy-nilly on white elephant projects, sustainability with a financial, social, or environmental become poor criteria. And I think there's gonna be quite a bit of pressure on Chinese policy, banks

21:27 - and construction companies to really pay heed to the fact that they need to be a lot more careful and scrutinize more closely, the kind of projects that they're involved in. And I think that some of the drama which has been attached to a handful of projects, is enough to make the Chinese state doubt that, you know, the original blueprint of the BRI, it can't continue. It has to be revised. and, and that says, I think a lot for the role that,

21:52 - you know, smaller, weaker states can have in the formulation. and the ultimate success of the Belt and Road Initiative. And this is I think, a very clear, case, in this regard.

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