CAB129-37 — Page 162

Dencentralising Administration

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141. Perhaps the most important administrative change was the vesting of authority in the Regional General Managers. Their technical staffs-engineer- ing (both civil and mechanical), agricultural, transportation, labour and per- sonnel for the first time became answerable to them instead of to the techni- cal managers and departmental heads in Kongwa, whose functions were also altered so as to make them advisory to the Regional General Managers. All members of the Regional General Managers' staffs were encouraged by the Board to take decisions for themselves; the Central Management, which consists of the General Manager (Agriculture), the General Manager (Engineering) and the Controller of Finance, welcomed this Board policy.

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142. The Corporation cannot claim that decentralisation was working per- fectly by the end of the financial year. It was clearly going to take time for men who had been accustomed to exercise considerable authority for executive action to have confidence in the ability of other men, working hundreds of miles away, to exercise that authority without their direct supervision. It was also going to take time to train men who had hitherto been accustomed to look elsewhere for direction to take full responsibility for their actions instead of always referring to the Headquarters Management. Neverthe- less, the policy of decentralisation was welcomed by the majority of the staff and shows every sign of producing a more efficient organisation.

Limitation of Programmes

143. In February, 1949, the Chairman was joined in East Africa by three of his colleagues, Sir Charles Lockhart, Mr. John Rosa and Mr. A. J. Wakefield. As a result of the information given to them and their investi- gations, it was decided that the programme of development at Kongwa would be limited for the time being to three Units (approximately 90,000 acres). Soil compaction, rooting problems, marginal rainfall and the desire to make the main effort in the Southern Province, all influenced this decision, which resulted in notice being given to the Contractors working in the region, Messrs. Pauling & Co. Ltd., of the discontinuance of their services. It was also agreed that clearing and development at Urambo would, for the time being, also be limited to 90,000 acres. The Board also decided in the light of experience gained at Kongwa and Urambo that more detailed scientific surveys of soil and topographical features in the Southern Province should begin immediately the long grass, which in the summer prevents survey teams entering the bush, had been burned. It also ordered that the logistics of large-scale development in the year 1950-51 should be re-studied.

144. The decisions to limit developments at Kongwa and Urambo resulted in general retrenchment. It affected the staff. Some members of the staffs of the Corporation and its Contractors were moved to new or different areas, while others were proved redundant.

Staff Relations

145. Relations of the Corporation with staff must be viewed in the light of the conditions under which they live and work. The European staff, includ- ing Contractors' staff, at March 31, 1949, comprised 1,982 men and women with families of 371 women and 368 children, a total community of 2,721 men, women and children. Only a small minority had ever been in Africa before and for the most part they were living in totally unfamiliar surround. ings in small townships and camps which they had created by their own efforts under the handicaps which this Report discloses, on sites which two years earlier were uninhabited and waterless African bush. It was not only the conditions of life which were unfamiliar, so were, and perhaps more import- antly, the conditions of work. While the staff as a whole had previous

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