EDITORIAL: Speed-up sumatra re-organisation
The government established the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) as a multi-sectoral regulatory agency to regulate rail, road and maritime transport services in Tanzania beginning in August 2004.
Barely a baker’s dozen years later, the government found it prudent to reorganise the system – largely in the interests of increased efficiency via load shedding and redistribution.
That was when and why it enacted a law in November 2017 to establish the Tanzania Shipping Agencies Corporation (Tasac) to regulate marine transport in Mainland Tanzania. Although that legislation was slated to take effect in February this year, this has not happened on the ground.
That anomaly notwithstanding, the government has embarked on establishing a Land Transport Regulatory Authority’ (Latra) to oversee land transportation services (also) on Tanzania Mainland. A Special Supplementary Bill to that end was first tabled in Parliament last Friday (November 16).
If and when the two proposed regulators for marine and land transport become operational, Sumatra would for all practical purposes be tossed into the dustbin of history.
When all is said and done, it must honestly be admitted that the government has so far been on the right track. This is in reorganising the marine and land transport regulation at a time when Sumatra was clearly overstretched and overburdened.
But, there is a fly in the ointment that could just as easily spoil success of the functional changes being sought. This is the undue delay in operationalising the Tanzania Shipping Agencies Corporation one year after it was statutorily mandated to swing into action.
That seemingly lackadaisical malaise could just as soon creep into the proposed Land Transport Regulatory Authority – the other arm of what amounts to a hallowed reorganisation of Tanzania’s transportation regulatory frameworks.
We must avoid such dilatoriness at all costs, so to speak.
