Final part of an eight-month long gruelling series writing

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”—Lao Tzu.

It’s the last act! What a journey experience it has been! Writing this 30-part article series on secured transactions, corporate recovery and insolvency, and banking litigation in Tanzania has taken eight months to complete.

The curtain-raiser to the series on 11 August 2018 provided background information, outlined some of the topics and central issues that were to be covered, and highlighted the need that the series would address for the banking and financial sector and the business community in general.

The first article “Bank lending challenges, prospects” started on 18 August 2018; and the twenty-ninth article “Arbitration: A new way in bank loan recovery?” was published last week on 16 March 2019.

Today’s article is the last one of the series. Hallelujah! Alhamdulillah!

Getting here has taken a lot of time, effort and extra energy. It was quite overwhelming as my own understanding needed augmentation in some aspects.

Indeed, besides sharing knowledge from a public education front through The Citizen, I embarked on this journey of writing the series to augment my own understanding, and to obtain feedback on my approach from the banking and financial sector, the legal fraternity, and the business community, and it couldn’t have gone any better.

I have gained strong ‘roots’ in secured transactions, corporate recovery and insolvency, and banking litigation.

All through the way, I have spoken to, and interacted with, some intelligent and accomplished in-house legal counsels and directors of credit, risk and finance as well as CEOs and entrepreneurs who have shared with me ideas, opinions and feedback.

Secondly, the amount of content I initially wrote for each draft article in the series was staggering and I had to remove legal jargon and simplify the content, adapting it to the limited space available, and dealing with weekly deadlines for submitting contributions to the editors, was one of the enjoyably challenging journeys outside legal practice I have ever taken.

Despite this, I have deepened my knowledge and understanding in the course of writing this 30-part series on secured transactions, corporate recovery and insolvency, and banking litigation than I ever envisaged.

I am grateful for all the more than 80 e-mails of constructive feedback and support I received, inquiring what topic or issue the next part would cover, expressing gratitude, and giving commendations.

All this turbo-charged me to complete the series with this last act.

I received an amazing show of support from The Citizen; the editorial team is awesome! I therefore thank everyone who e-mailed me, and I am sorry for the delay in responding to some of the communications.

I would like to thank my colleagues at Isidora & Company, Advocates, and officials from the Bank of Tanzania, the Tanzania Bankers’ Association, the Ministry of Lands, the Business Registration and Licensing Agency (Brela), the Registration Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (RITA), and the High Court of Tanzania for all the time they carved out to answer my questions and requests for clarification on some policy, legal and procedural aspects of secured transactions, corporate recovery and insolvency, and banking litigation in Tanzania.

There’s someone who rang me via our office phone about translating the article series into Swahili in January this year. Yes – Swahili would be great, and I will consider this idea.

It was not my intention to discuss exhaustively each topic or issue covered in the series; if I delved into great detail, the series would never come to an end today.

For instance, money laundering in the banking and financial sector as well as the tax consequences of banking litigation damages and settlements are some of the issues that have not been covered, but nevertheless are important. If you would like these expounded on, e-mail me.

I feel a sense of accomplishment completing this 30-part article series, however, the next articles will be on a variety of topics or issues and they will not be in the format of a series.

Again, thank you all readers for all your support and feedback.

Paul Kibuuka ([email protected]) is a tax and corporate lawyer, tax policy analyst and the chief executive of Isidora & Company.