Prime
No lights, no water, no problem: Our social contract conundrum
What you need to know:
- The essence of the social contract is that the ruled should receive a basic standard of service
I’ve been asked more than once how I manage to churn out an article every single week. Critics argue it’s a recipe for superficiality—no time to marinate a topic before the next deadline looms. Yet, after five years of steady writing as a columnist, I’ll let you in on a secret: the articles often write themselves here.
Picture this: It’s Friday evening. Your mind is a blank slate. Do you dissect Putin’s three-year war in Ukraine? Trump’s latest circus act in America? Or perhaps the deafening silence as Tanzanian soldiers fall in the DRC’s chaos? Closer home, Dar RC Albert Chalamila’s latest jab at expectant mothers is a low-hanging fruit. Then there’s the grand Energy Summit we just hosted. Streets swept, schools closed, dignitaries applauding Tanzania’s “energy sufficiency” while millions fumble in the dark. Way to be real.
As you waffle between global drama and local farce, reality barges in uninvited: a day-long blackout. No explanation. Just the hum of silence, broken by the maddening drip-drip of a tap that hasn’t seen proper water pressure in weeks. Suddenly, Trump’s tweets and Putin’s tanks fade into white noise. What stings isn’t the outage itself—it’s the cognitive dissonance. Leaders boast of “surplus energy” while your fridge wilts and your laptop dies. Who needs Hollywood villains when your own government gaslights you daily?
Let’s talk about the “social contract”—a term as foreign to our reality as snow in Dar. Philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau dreamed up this idea: citizens surrender some freedoms, and in return, the state provides order, security, and basic services. If what we have in Tanzania is a social contract, then you can be sure that the rulers signed their part in an invisible ink.
Years ago, I did an MBA programme at ESAMI, where we did a Business Law course taught by an engaging Zambian instructor who made the driest legal principles come alive. We learned that for any contract to be valid, it needs three things: an offer, a consideration, and an agreement. Let’s assume, for a moment, that a kind of contract exists between the rulers and the ruled in our country—a big assumption, indeed. But here’s the question: is the consideration that the people receive fair?
In my view, the exchange between our leaders and us is severely skewed. If we’re paying taxes and still have to buy generators for our businesses, or invest in elaborate water reserves, or fortify our homes for security, then clearly, we’re being shortchanged. The essence of the social contract is that the ruled should receive a basic standard of service, a promise that, even when affordable in theory, remains as elusive in practice as a reliable public service in Tanzania.
Take that Chalamila’s decree: “No money for gloves? No service for you!” Legal? Maybe. Legitimate? Only in a dystopia. This isn’t a social contract—it’s a bad joke.
I recall an unsettling incident from years ago in our church, when a member died of a heart attack. A friend of mine, a Doctor of Medicine, observed that even basic emergency procedures were not followed by people who should have known better. He lamented that in this country, no matter what you are worth, in critical moments, no amount of money could save you. I don’t know why but that experience hit him so hard that he eventually sold all his properties and moved his family back to the UK.
Many of us, however, don’t have the luxury of simply walking away. We can’t flee because an ambulance arrived too late, nor because our business was reduced to ash next to a fire station. We can’t escape the endless road construction that turns our daily commute into a nightmare, nor can we abandon a substandard education system that leaves us unemployable. So, sadly, we have to make do with the status quo.
When the government tears up a power deal that was stabilising our grid, we shrug. When they crow about “excess energy” while generators at mines in Geita and Mbeya guzzle diesel, we sigh. We’ve mastered the art of swallowing bitter pills: Yes, the Emperor’s new clothes are stunning.
Perhaps this is our fate. The Congolese, blessed with astonishing wealth of natural resources, struggle for peace. And here in Tanzania, is it really a big deal if some of us disappear every now and then? What if we get water a couple of hours per week? We just fill our tanks and go on about our lives, huh?
But we cannot but ask: Is it too much to ask for a government that honours its side of the social contract? We are not asking for utopia. Just roads without craters. Water that flows. Lights that stay on. Schools that teach. Hospitals that heal. Again, is that too much?
It’s not rocket science. It’s governance. And until our leaders grasp that the social contract isn’t a charity—it’s a transaction—we’ll keep writing these articles. Because in Tanzania, the material for these articles never runs dry.
One day yes.
