Tanzania to seek out-of-court settlements in cases with investors

Dodoma. The government is looking at a possibility of reaching out-of-court settlements in some of the cases facing Tanzania in international courts as it seeks to minimize cost of running the lawsuits.

The Attorney General (AG), Prof Adelardus Kilangi, told the Parliament on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 that the government was doing everything possible to avoid lawsuits in the preparation of contracts with investors/contractors/suppliers.

“As for cases in international courts, the focus is on ensuring that we reach out-of-court agreements to save on costs associated with the running of the lawsuits,” said Prof Kilangi.

He was responding to an auxiliary question by Mr Saed Kubenea (Ubungo-Chadema) who wanted to know steps that the government was taking to pay contractors in cases where the former is sued for terminating contracts.

In his main question, Mr Kubenea wanted the government to explain why certain public institutions were still utilizing services of private practice lawyers despite the 2018 amendments to the law governing the AG’s Office under which all lawyers in the public service were placed under the AG’s Office.

Responding to the question, Prof Kilangi said by the amendments were effected, some public institutions had already signed agreements with private practice lawyers, hence the need to compete them.

Responding to the issue, the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Dr Augustine Mahiga, said the creation of the office of the Solicitor General has seen the government saving Sh9 billion that would otherwise be spent on paying private practice lawyers.