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78 Chapter 9 Translation into Finance After the Secretary General, the second most senior officer in EACSO was the Financial Secretary, who at that time was John Hinchey. I presume that another reason for Adu giving me the assignments I have referred to, was because he felt uneasy about askingHincheytorepresenthimatsuchfunctions,becauseHinchey was an expatriate. At any rate, before Adu completed his contract with EACSO, he again promoted me in May 1964, to understudy Mr Hinchey. I therefore moved from the Secretary General’s Office to the EACSO Treasury as a ‘Supernumerary’ Financial Secretary. I ceased to be Adu’s personal assistant at this point. The following month, June 1964, Mr Adu was succeeded by Mr Dunstan Omari as Secretary General. Mr Omari had just retired as Permanent Secretary to the President and Head of the Tanzania Civil Service. (It should be noted that following the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar in April 1964 “Tanzania” came into existence and from then on this name applies). The East African Central Legislative Council had started rotating its sittings in the three capitals, and its next session was held in Dar es Salaam in July and August 1964. All senior EACSO officers, including Hinchey and myself, therefore moved to Dar es Salaam. It was a marathon meeting, and I got tired of the hotel I was booked in. Light relief came when I could get an officer to sit for me in the gallery to take notes of what Honourable Members were saying, and I made a point of visiting Tanzanian civil service colleagues in their offices. Most of them had only recently been promoted and were excited in their new jobs. Osija Mwambungu was Permanent Secretary, Commerce and Industry; Cleopa Msuya was in Lands; Bernard Mulokozi in Foreign Affairs; Dickson Nkembo in Development Planning; and Ainamensa Mbuya in Works and Communications. All were former school or college mates. One morning I paid a courtesy call on Joseph Namata, the new Permanent Secretary to the President and Head of the Tanzania Civil Service. I had sent him a congratulatory letter on 79 his appointment, but had not been able to meet him personally to shake hands. Joe also congratulated me on my promotion to the EACSO Treasury post. During our conversation, Joe enquired as to when my secondment to EACSO would end. I replied that I was due to complete the two years approved by the Government in January 1965. I added that I might write officially to him to request for an extension because I had only been promoted to understudy the Financial Secretary and would prefer to perform as substantive Financial Secretary for a longer period before reverting to the Tanzania Civil Service. I intimated to him that the expatriate Financial Secretary was in fact planning to retire towards the end of October, and I might take over substantively about that time. A day after I returned to Nairobi, Mr Hinchey confirmed his plans to leave in early November and I started preparing to move into his very elegant mansion in Lower Kileleshwa. However, only a week after I returned to Nairobi, Joe Namata telephoned. He informed me that President Nyerere had decided to appoint me Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and that therefore my secondment to EACSO was to end. He stressed that I had to report in September so that I could take over from the incumbent Permanent Secretary, Jacob Namfua, who was due to leave for a long-term course overseas. Mr Namfua, a trade unionist-cum-politician, was a personal friend of mine. He had served as a Junior Minister for Finance but had been translated into the Civil Service post of Permanent Secretary to the Treasury recently on the expatriate incumbent, Colin de Hill, suddenly opting to retire. Apparently, Namfua was determined to leave early as he did not want to miss beginning his studies at Oxford University in the autumn semester. I was in a quandary: I was a pensionable officer of the Government of Tanzania and EACSO was remitting to that Government the required contribution to sustain my pensionable status during the period of secondment. I was occupying a post in EACSO with much higher remuneration and benefits than I would ever get in my own country. My immediate boss in EACSO was a loyal, patriotic Tanzanian, who would not defy the Government in order to retain me in my current job. The job I was being offered at home had greater responsibilities and prestige...

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