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Issue 00478 |
July 21 - 27, 2007 |
issn 0856 - 9135 |
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In Focus |
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Real worries about sustained income
generation
Talks by some professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs in town are often dominated by so much emphasis on making money as if money is an actual thing. Yet, the history of money reminds that in reality money is just an imaginary symbol that represents some actual values. It follows that the idea of making money in isolation is like trying to capture a shadow as if it is a real object. Therefore, it is not surprising that many qualified but misguided professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs in town fail to generate income on a sustained basis. Sustained wealth is in the form of products, services and ideas rather than money that is imaginary. The focus is to embark on campaigns supported by genuine commitment to process the raw materials in Tanzania in order to add values to the materials before trading. For example, raw materials such as agricultural crops can be processed into food products that are easier to store and transport. Processed items can be sold to generate more significant amounts of revenues at convenient times. However, it can be argued that individuals in low and medium income categories lack resources or capacities to process raw materials. But they can improve delivery of services. The key is to realize that service has two main parts that include the product and personal parts. For example, some local restaurants inform that they serve roast beef while they actually serve stew made from fried beef. That is the product part of service, albeit wrongly labeled. Often the waiters in such restaurants are not sensitive to clients’ needs. Customers have to shout to attract attention in order to be served. On the other hand, the waiters are not impressed by the customers’ shouting attitudes. As a result, they serve the stew wearing frowned faces. How waiters deliver the stew is the personal part of service. A bad delivery in this case. Evidence in town indicates that entrepreneurs do not make serious efforts to improve the product or services offered by their enterprises. Meanwhile, the question of development of ideas for economic prosperity seems to be a more remote undertaking in Tanzania. But it deserves attention. Development of indigenous knowledge for sale to generate sustained income comes to mind as an idea. Efforts are required to develop more accurate procedures to diagnose diseases based on indigenous cultural experiences. Systematic systems to carry out diagnosis are to be followed in order to develop standard medication dozes that can be stored and provided from sanitary environments. It pays to make long-term efforts to process raw materials, to improve services and to develop ideas. Processed materials, specialized services and new ideas are developed while aiming at establishing what economists call brands and trademarks. These commerce terms refer to standardized levels of quality or characteristics of products or services that have been developed and tested over the years. The ideas that are used to package the standardized qualities or characteristics of products or services can be traded as real values. For example, a trader may negotiate and pay owners of the Shoprite trademark for permission to run a grocery in order to trade as Shoprite. In turn, the owners of the trademark receive benefits that include a category known as royalties. The trader is expected to operate within standards specified by the owners of the trademark. Economists have coined a slogan to refer to such levels of business as, "making money to work for owners" as opposed to owners working for money as it happens at the beginning. It is the highest level in business of ensuring that income generation will be sustained through generations. Such levels of success are tempting. But not everybody in town wishes to follow the long process of developing brands and trademarks in order to make money. Instead, many people prefer to use short cuts that are in the form of corruption, stealing and even killing in order to make money. Needless to mention, the short cuts are unethical and generate income that is not sustainable in the long term. Worse, they are repeated time and again to sustain incomes that have been acquired through the short cuts. Surely, this is an adequate alarm for residents of Arusha. The alarm serves in part, as a motivation to make deliberate, vigorous and concerted efforts to convince everyone practically that it pays to develop Tanzania’s own competitive high quality products and services for sale locally, nationally as well as internationally. Money features in this case only as a measure of the values of the products and services that have been developed. Is money needed first to develop the products, services and ideas? Yes, certainly. Is this contradictory? No, it is not. Financiers in business usually give money in the form of loans to individuals or institutions that possess fixed assets such as houses and farms that have values that are equivalent to the amount of money being requested. Economists call such assets collateral. It confirms that money is only a representation of some value in the form of assets in this case. Other real worries about sustained
incomes include the fact that officials in the country still express the
image that agriculture is the basis of economic development while the
world measures economic progress in terms of extent of reduced
dependence on agriculture. There is limited emphasis on research and
development. Therefore, the country has to wait for the Western
countries to inform that a certain product in the country or an
industrial technology is health threatening. If these are not real
worries about income generation in the long term, then what are? |
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By Ramadhani Kupaza
