Citizens express worries on capacity to enforce new laws

Key bills were tabled before the House this week. Tanzanians had the chance to propose what they would have liked to see included in the proposed laws. Here are some of the suggestions by our readers. Read on ...

Abubakary Solomon

Though the bills have been passed by the August House without stakeholder’s participation, I assume all important issues of public interest have been taken care off. The recent report, Resource Governance Index 2017 reveals that most countries had better laws but were derailed by poor implementation of the same.

Therefore, after the laws have been endorsed, Tanzania should ensure integrity in implementation in order to adequately benefit. Corruption, which hinders implementation of extractive laws, should be addressed vigorously.

Salome Chigamba-Dar

The citizens don’t have knowledge on the content of the bills recently passed by Parliament, but I’m optimistic a committee which prepared the bills did its job with highest integrity on behalf of Tanzanians.

The government is supposed to address shortcomings revealed to deny the country with appropriate revenue. Since natural resources have been pronounced public property then processing should be done locally to create jobs for Tanzanians.

Therefore, efforts should be done to ensure a smelter is built in the country and that we permanently ban exportation of copper and gold concentrates for smelting something which according to two presidential committees reports denied the country trillions of shillings.

Habiba Yusuph-Geita

After the bills have been endorsed at Parliament, the government should ensure transparency in the country’s extractive industry. Signed contracts should be publicized and made accessible to the public.

Also, revenue collected in the oil and gas and the mining sectors should be made public alongside its expenditure. On top of that the government should spend the money in implementing development projects and improving social welfare of the people.

Humphrey Yusuph

The public wants to see loop holes in the industry are plugged and the wealth is used to develop the country. Mineral concentrates should be smelted locally and transparency is improved.

However, the government should launch investigations to identify Tanzanians who took part in signing such dubious contracts. Investigation to establish whether material wealth was used during the signing should be done before extending legal measures to all who would be found to take part in the scam.