II. HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NGO POLICY

2.1 Colonial Rule and the Societies Ordinance

The history of civil society associations in Tanzania goes back to the early years of the British colonial rule. In 1922, the Tanganyika Territory African Civil Servants Association was formed to provide for the welfare of the native civil servants. Seven years later another organisation - the Tanganyika African Association (TAA) - was formed, largely to promote sporting and cultural activities.

Although the first two decades of British rule were relatively quiet, the post-World War Two period saw an upsurge in political activism. The late 1940s and early 1950s were years of intense mass action by the incipient labour and nationalist movements (Shivji, 1986). In 1954, Mwalimu Nyerere, who had become leader of TAA the previous year, reorganized it as the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) which led Tanganyika to independence seven years later.

Not surprisingly, the colonial administration responded to the rise of nationalism with a series of laws aimed at checking the growth of these mass movements or directing them into safer channels. To regulate the activities of workers' organisations the colonial state enacted the Trade Unions Ordinance Cap. 381 (Shivji, 1986). And to control voluntary associations which were increasingly engaging in political activity, it enacted the Societies Ordinance, Cap. 337 in 1954, the same year that TAA was transformed into TANU.

Both these laws attempted to monitor and restrict popular organisations by prohibiting them from engaging in oppositional political activity.¹ These laws set up registrar's offices with supervisory powers over each sector of voluntary association (that is for societies, trade unions and cooperatives, respectively). The occupants of these posts were colonial bureaucrats and they wielded wide discretionary powers. Under the Societies Ordinance, for instance, the Registrar of Societies could require a society to furnish him with financial reports showing its source of funding.² He could cancel or refuse registration on numerous grounds, including links with foreign political parties or organisations, and conduct considered prejudicial to peace, order and good government.³ In practice, these provisions were almost invariably invoked to deal with organisations engaged in social or political action considered inimical to the interests of the colonial state and economy.

The Societies Ordinance also conferred wide discretionary authority on both the colonial governor and the minister responsible for internal affairs. They were empowered to outlaw societies and prohibit their activities;⁴ the Governor could make laws (under Section 32); and was granted quasi-judicial appellate powers (under Section 13). The result was a high degree of fusion between the executive, legislative and judicial powers that the colonial administration wielded over societies, powers that the Presidency subsequently inherited after independence.

The Ordinance established severe criminal sanctions for non-compliance with its provisions. Upon conviction, a person holding office within, or managing, or assisting in the management of an unlawful society⁵ could be imprisoned for a period of up to seven years. A member or any person attending a meeting of an unlawful organisation or allowing one to be held on his premises could be imprisoned for a period of up to three years. Fines could also be levied on such offenders.⁶

Furthermore, the terms of the Ordinance denied defendants the benefits of the presumption of innocence, shifting the burden of proof on to them rather than the prosecution.⁷ The Ordinance created, in addition, wide powers to disrupt the activities of NGOs seen as a threat to the colonial order. In particular, it empowered colonial officials to enter places believed to be used for subversive activities, and conduct searches, make arrests or carry out seizures.⁸

These provisions had devastating implications for the security of basic freedoms of association and expression and for the development of civil society during the colonial period. And, as we will consider in the following section, even after four decades of independence, they have continued to cast a long shadow over the basic rights and freedoms theoretically guaranteed by the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, as well as on the development of NGOs and social movements within the country.

1. On the state's control of popular organisations see articles by W.B.L. Kapinga, H.G. Mwakyembe, C. Peter, S.E.A. Mvungi and S. Naali in Shivji (1985).
2. Societies Ordinance, 1954, Cap. 337, ss. 15, 16.
3. Ibid., s. 9.
4. Ibid., ss. 6, 12A.
5. An unlawful society was defined under the Ordinance as "… any society declared or deemed to have been declared to be unlawful by the President…" or any society whose application for registration "remains undetermined"; or whose appeal to the President (in respect of the Registrar's refusal to register or order for cancellation of its registration) "… remains undetermined" (ibid., s. 2). As the Societies Ordinance did not give a time limit within which the Registrar or the President were obliged to determine applications for registration or appeals against refusal of registration, a society could remain paralyzed for being "unlawful" as long as the Registrar or the President chose to sit on an application for registration or on an appeal against refusal of registration.
6. Ibid., ss. 19, 20 and 21.
7. Ibid., ss. 22 and 23.
8. Ibid., ss. 25 and 26.