Chadema seeks greater financial clout

Dar es Salaam. Chadema plans to embark on an ambitious plan to ensure that the opposition party is financially independent.

Addressing Chadema’s congress ahead of last night’s election of national leaders, the party’s chairman, Mr Freeman Mbowe, said plans were afoot to establish an online platform on which members would make contributions to fund the party’s day-to-day operations.

He said currently the party operates by using Sh280 million from party membership fees and Sh3 billion through grants. But, through the new digitalized fee collection system, the party will be able to collect Sh15 billion annually, an amount which - according to him - would enable the party to carry our its operations smoothly.

This - according to Mr Mbowe - would enable the party to conduct its operations without depending on subsidies from the government. Mr Mbowe said that, by increasing its membership fees from Sh1,000 to Sh2,500, Chadema - with a membership base of about six million people - would become financially independent.

He was speaking during the launching of the project yesterday, a few hours hefore he was due to face Mr Cecil Mwambe for the party’s chairmanship in last night’s elections.

According to him the party wouldn’t be able to sustain itself through the current form of collecting revenues.

“Through ‘the Chadema Digital,’ we are sure that we would raise about Sh15 billion because we believe that if Chadema members contribute accordingly, we could raise about Sh15 billion which is enough to sustain the party,” said Mr Mbowe.

For that to happen, Mr Mbowe said the meeting will amend the party’s constitution. By the time we went to the press the campaigns were yet to start.

But in an interview with The Citizen’s sister newspaper Mwananchi, Mr Mwambe said his priority will be in making sure of party’s sustainability. He said his focus is to construct a new and modern party headquarters.

Members of the Chadema general meeting were expected to elect party leaders in a poll held yesterday. Apart from Mr Mbowe and Mwambe, others who were expected to vie for the party’s top leadership positions were Mr Tundu Lissu and Ms Sophia Mwakagenda, who were expected to vie for the party’s vice chairmanship.

Recently, former prime minister Frederick Sumaye, who defected to the opposition, quit Chadema after his bid to retain the party’s chairmanship in the Pwani Zone flopped.

He was the second high-profile leader to quit the party recently, following in the footsteps of another former prime minister, Edward Lowassa, the party’s presidential flag bearer in the 2015 election. Mr Lowassa defected to the opposition after he was defeated by President John Magufuli in the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) intra-party election in 2015. As we went to the press the members were still in the meeting.