President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania is trying to have his economic cake and eat it, too. He ended a week-long nationalization takeover Monday with an appeal for more private investment. His appeal appeared in a special article for the East African Standard, the English language daily read by most Western businessmen in Nairobi. Nyerere maintained that his nationalization of banks and other businesses in the last week had cleared the air. Investors now knew they could invest in everything else with confidence, he wrote. Nyerere also said that his country now had nothing to fear from private investment because the important things had been nationalized. "The key positions of the economy have been secured for the nation in the same way, as during a war, an army occupies the sites which dominate the countryside," Nyerere said. "We can now welcome the enterprise of private investors without reservations, because we no longer have any cause to fear the effect of their activities on our social purpose." Nyerere's appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears...
President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania is trying to have his economic cake and eat it, too. He ended a week-long nationalization takeover Monday with an appeal for more private investment. His appeal appeared in a special article for the East African Standard, the English language daily read by most Western businessmen in Nairobi. Nyerere maintained that his nationalization of banks and other businesses in the last week had cleared the air. Investors now knew they could invest in everything else with confidence, he wrote. Nyerere also said that his country now had nothing to fear from private investment because the important things had been nationalized. "The key positions of the economy have been secured for the nation in the same way, as during a war, an army occupies the sites which dominate the countryside," Nyerere said. "We can now welcome the enterprise of private investors without reservations, because we no longer have any cause to fear the effect of their activities on our social purpose." Nyerere's appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears...
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