Nida sets up shop at Brela offices

The National Identification Authority (Nida) has opened a window at the Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (Brela) to speed up online business registration, which started early this month.

As opposed to the past when businesspeople were forced to go to Nida offices to acquire national identity cards (IDs) needed for starting companies, the service will now be available under the same roof.

The authority’s acting head of Communication and Documentation Unit, Ms Rose Mdami, told The Citizen yesterday that the government had decided to invest in the Online Registration System (ORS) to ensure that people access the service fast to reduce bureaucracy.

“The government’s goal is to ensure that people who want to register companies are Tanzanians. If the licence seekers are foreigners, they must follow all procedures to get the IDs,” said Ms Mdami.

Further, she said Brela would assist people who do not possess IDs to ease the process of registering their companies.

She added that the authority is now operating countrywide and aims at ensuring that every qualified Tanzanian has a national ID because such a document would help them to access loans, acquire a passport and resister a simcard, to mention just a few.

Last month, Brela chief executive officer Frank Kanyusi told The Citizen that the introduction of online business registration was expected to increase the number of business entities, names, patents and licenses.

He said Tanzania is joining countries in Africa that had adopted the online system to speed up registration. They include Nigeria, Zambia, Morocco, Namibia and South Africa.

This year the agency plans to register 20,000 local companies, 4,000 foreign companies, 60,000 business names, 60 patents, 10,000 trade and service marks as well as 30,000 business licenses.

The Brela acting deputy registrar Intellectual Property, Ms Loy Mhando said companies requiring trademarks for their products can now access the service within two months instead of six months.