By Adonis Byemelwa
On April 24, 2025, the Tanzanian government gathered in anticipation as Minister of State in the President’s Office for Public Service Management and Good Governance, Mr. George Simbachawene (pictured), tabled the 2025–2026 budget.
At the center of the discussion sits the Public Employee Performance Management Information System—PEPMIS—a platform introduced with the hope of ushering in a new era of efficiency, transparency, and accountability in managing public servants.
Nonetheless, behind the numbers and the promise of digitization, there’s a different story quietly unfolding: one of red tape reinvented, of digital hurdles replacing paper ones, and of workers left frustrated in the wake of a well-intentioned yet flawed system.
PEPMIS was launched to modernize Tanzania’s public service, replacing older tools like OPRAS and IPCS. The idea was to streamline everything—performance reviews, leave requests, salary access, even the ability to manage personal details—all in one platform. In theory, it sounded perfect. In reality, it hasn’t played out so smoothly.
From the get-go, many public servants welcomed the idea. After all, who wouldn’t prefer a centralized, paperless system over the exhausting manual process of shuffling hard-copy documents from one office to another, sometimes across districts?
"When we first heard about PEPMIS," said a Kinondoni-based officer who preferred to remain anonymous, "we thought it was the end of those long bus rides just to submit a form. It felt like the government was finally listening to us."
But excitement soon gave way to confusion—and eventually to frustration. For many, the problems began with something seemingly simple: salary transfers after a change in duty station. The process, now digitized, was supposed to be faster. Instead, numerous employees found themselves stranded in administrative limbo, working in new departments or regions while their salaries remained stuck in their old stations.
“I was officially transferred to my new workplace over a year ago,” one employee recounted. “All the documents were submitted, the handover was done, and even the new appointment letter was uploaded into the system. But my salary? Still being paid from my previous office.” His voice grew tight. “I’ve sent emails, made calls. No one picks up. You feel invisible.”
That sense of being unheard is shared widely. One of the most frequently cited issues is the inaccessibility of support. The PEPMIS system lists customer service numbers and emails, but workers say it's rare for calls to go through or for emails to get a reply.
“You end up begging a Member of Parliament or a Minister to intervene, just so someone can open your file,” said another frustrated employee. “It makes you wonder—what’s the point of digitization if it just replicates the same bottlenecks?”
The system’s centralization is a double-edged sword. Everything is routed through Dodoma, the nation’s administrative heart. On paper, this makes sense: streamline oversight, create a single source of truth.
But in practice, it means even the simplest problems—like a misspelled name or a lost file—can take months to resolve. And for those in remote regions, far from the capital, the obstacles multiply. Limited internet access and a lack of proper hardware, like computers, mean that even logging into the system becomes a daily challenge.
A teacher in rural Singida expressed her ordeal bluntly: “You need to use PEPMIS for performance reviews, but the internet goes down most of the time. Even when it’s up, the system crashes. If you miss your performance review deadline, it’s on you. No one cares that the network was out for a week.”
Despite the system's nationwide rollout, training hasn’t kept pace. While some workshops have been organized in areas like Kinondoni and Dodoma, these sessions often only scratch the surface. “We had one session,” said a nurse from Morogoro. “They showed us how to log in, where to click for our details, but they didn’t teach us what to do when something goes wrong. So, we don’t touch anything unless we have to. It’s safer that way.”
The irony, of course, is that PEPMIS was supposed to eliminate these very fears. By making processes transparent and self-service, the hope was that government employees would feel empowered. But empowerment requires understanding, and understanding requires real support—support that many say is lacking.
This disconnect between vision and implementation has reignited conversations about what truly makes a digital transformation successful. Interestingly, neighboring Rwanda offers a case study worth examining.
Its IPPIS platform—similar in scope to PEPMIS—has earned praise for its intuitive design and localized support. Instead of forcing everything through one central office, Rwanda invested in regional hubs and provided continuous, step-by-step training. As a result, their public servants report smoother transitions and fewer systemic breakdowns.
Tanzania could learn from this model. Minister Simbachawene’s recent directive to establish a One Stop Centre in Dodoma might be a step in that direction. The goal is to have senior officers, even psychologists, on hand to address employee challenges on the spot.
If implemented well, this could offer a much-needed lifeline to those stuck in procedural gridlock. “We need someone to listen—listen,” said a senior official in the Ministry of Health. “If these One Stop Centres do that, then maybe we still have hope.”
Still, there’s skepticism in the air. Many remember when PEPMIS itself was launched with fanfare, framed as a revolutionary step forward. Now, some wonder if it simply digitized dysfunction. “It’s like putting a broken bicycle on a conveyor belt and expecting it to run,” quipped one mid-level officer in Dar es Salaam. “If the core processes aren’t fixed, tech won’t save us.”
The frustration runs deeper than just operational hiccups. There’s a growing fear that reliance on this flawed system is opening doors to corruption. “When no one is responding, people start looking for shortcuts,” one employee whispered. “If someone can fix your issue in a day because you ‘know them,’ then the whole point of accountability is lost.”
That sense of distrust, of resignation, casts a shadow over what should have been a progressive milestone. Yet, as the government debates its future spending priorities today, the focus must shift from merely defending PEPMIS to refining it. Employees don’t want perfection—they want functionality, fairness, and the assurance that when they follow procedure, someone will follow through.
For many, the irony is painful. They recall the analogue days—paper files carted by hand from office to office, delays blamed on “missing documents,” clerks who held files hostage, sometimes quite literally.
The birth of PEPMIS promised an escape from that maze. But instead of clearing the path, it has often just digitized the detours. “It feels like we just swapped one kind of red tape for another,” one longtime clerk reflected. “The screen might be new, but the silence behind it is the same.”
Meanwhile, in countries like Estonia, Canada, and Finland, similar platforms run with quiet efficiency. There, performance and payroll systems are not just digital—they’re intelligent. They auto-flag discrepancies, route issues to human agents in real time, and use analytics to prevent errors before they happen. The contrast is stark.
As the budget is laid out today, it’s time to stop seeing PEPMIS as a finished product and start treating it as a work in progress. Because this isn’t just a software issue. It’s a service issue. And no system, no matter how high-tech, will ever work if the people behind it don’t. Progress must feel real, not just promised.