Utilise retirees!

(East African Business Week)-- The African presidential roundtable of former presidents and heads of State that met in Dar es Salaam for two days last week, brought to the fore the importance of respecting, utilising and honouring all retired people in the interest of progress and to avoid unnecessary national mistakes.

Among participants of the roundtable were Tanzania’s retired presidents Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa and former Premier Frederick Sumaye, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, John Kufour of Ghana, former Premier of Mozambique - Luisa Diogo, Antonio Monteerio of Cape Verde and former president of Mauritius Karl Auguste Offman.

The African Presidential Archives and Research Centre of Boston University, headed by former US Ambassador to Tanzania, Reverend Charles Stith, convened the two forum.

These distinguished retirees met to brain storm and advise governments on the importance of land reforms to ensure its distribution and ownership in a transparent and corruption-free environment, in order to empower their people for economic progress. Their recommendations should be heard and seriously taken into consideration because experience is the best teacher. Their experience has drawn them to consider the issue of land as paramount.

However, few retirees attended the roundtable for some reasons because many countries have living former presidents, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Nigeria and many more to name a few. Their views would have been useful.

Such meetings shouldn’t stop at former or retired heads of State and government. At national levels, many retired, highly trained and experienced people are ignored. The net effect being wastage of experience and resourcefulness gained after years of experience and study, which could have been useful if only they were utilised in organised ways. African countries can create ‘think-tanks’ for various fields of national activities be it scientific, economic, political or medicine.

Some eight years ago the East African Community Secretariat mooted the idea of establishing a ‘club’ for retired heads of State so they could serve as pillars of ‘regional wisdom’ and talk shop for peers, but the idea hasn’t been effected.

Time has come to re-visit the idea of creating ‘clubs’ for retired regional presidents, former chief secretaries, former ministers, and professionals of various fields. The EAC needs their input!

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