TANZANIA Rationale and ReseaRch PaRaMeteRs MISA Tanzania joined other MISA Chapters in participating in a study to establish the most open and secretive government and public institutions in southern Africa. The study started on the 4th of July 2016 and was concluded on the 26th of July 2016. Seven of the eight institutions picked have been named the most open institutions in Tanzania since the start of the study in 2009. The goal was to find out which one of the most open institutions was actually the ‘most open’. The eigth institution assessed, the Occupational Safety and Health Agency, is a recently-established public agency, which was picked by the researcher to see how it compared to established ones. The following public institutions were surveyed: 1. Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) 2. Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) 3. Ministry of Finance (MoF) 4. Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) 5. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 6. Ministry of Energy and Mineral (MEM) 7. Ministry of Constitution and Legal Affairs (MOCLA) 8. National Housing Cooperation (NHC) Research Methodology The research adopted qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and sought to assess the level of public access to information held by government and public institutions. In order to achieve this, research was conducted by evaluating the websites of government and public institutions, along with their feedback to information requests. This method sought to establish government and public institutions’ transparency and efficiency in providing information to the public. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Category 1: Website analysis • • • • • • Category 2: Requests for information • The researcher had the request letters hand-delivered and sent via email to the addresses of the respective institutions. The requests for information were sent on 4thand 5th of July 2016 and dispatches were signed by the responsible persons. A week later, follow-ups were conducted via telephone. Limitations of the Study • • • 74 Acknowledging receipts of request letters is still a challenge to some agencies and ministries. It is an embedded culture that would probably take time to outdate. When a letter is sent, someone receives it and signs the dispatch form and hands it over it to the intended recipient. This person however, does not acknowledge the receipt of the letter. This year, some of those required to receive the letters did not even want to sign the dispatch form neither would they give out their contact details. The picture one gets is that no one wants to be held liable. Limited resources. Most of the websites surveyed are up-to-date. The websites are transparent and well-organised, providing a sufficient amount of relevant public information. The websites provide directions to the office; some have even maps, contact details and working hours. Most of the websites had several links to other government sites, improving information seeking and sharing. The Ministry of Energy scored highly (18 points) with the recently-established Occupation Safety & Health Authority (OSHA) scoring only 7 points. It was observed that, while the OSHA website contained some key information, other vital information was missing; more updates and relevant information are needed. The social networks linked to these sites are not frequently updated; the social networks of the Occupation Safety & Health Authority (OSHA) for instance, were last updated in January 2016. Most of the websites arein both national languages (English and Swahili), overcoming the language barrier and increasing the number of people that can access information. Most offices have websites and it was observed that the information posted is often up-to-date and downloadable documents are provided. • • • All the institutions surveyed had their contacts and email addresses on their websites, but not all were active since some of the emails sent failed permanently such as that sent to the Ministry of Lands Housing and Human Settlements Development. Modes of responding to requests interestingly differed from one institution to another. There were those who were quick to respond to emails, while others responded by telephone. But there were also those who simply found difficulties with everything and never responded. Two of the institutions surveyed, requested the researcher to physically visit their offices and obtain the information needed rather than responding via email or letter. The institutions were the National Housing Corporation and the National Social Security Fund. One institution, the National Bureau of Statistics responded to the request for information on the fourth day. They sent an email and a message to the researcher to check the email and visit their website.