Parliamentary committee urges change in coordinating Buzwagi industrial park
Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Administration, Constitution and Legal Affairs, Dr Damas Ndumbaro, speaking during the committee’s visit to inspect the Buzwagi industrial park in Kahama District, Shinyanga Region. PHOTO | AMINA MBWAMBO
Kahama. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Administration, Constitution and Legal Affairs has directed the government to place the coordination of the Buzwagi industrial park under the Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority (TISEZA) in a bid to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks and attract more investors.
Currently, the industrial park is under the Kahama District Council.
The committee says the move is crucial to advancing Tanzania’s industrialisation agenda, creating jobs and accelerating economic growth in line with the country’s Development Vision 2050.
Committee chairperson Dr Damas Ndumbaro issued the directive on Friday, March 13, 2026, during a visit to the Buzwagi site in Kahama District. He said the committee was satisfied with the level of preparations at the industrial park, noting that key infrastructure such as water, electricity, air transport services and road networks had already been put in place.
Dr Ndumbaro also highlighted legal challenges affecting investment in the country, saying the committee had identified inconsistencies in some laws that could discourage investors.
“We have discovered contradictions between certain laws that do not align well. Our committee has taken up the matter so that it can be addressed through Parliament in order to attract more investors,” he said.
He noted that although the Investment Act provides incentives to investors, amendments made to financial legislation in 2025 had limited some of those incentives.
“We are directing the government to ensure that the private sector is adequately empowered to achieve its objectives,” he added.
Deputy Minister for Investment and Planning Stephen Chaya said the government had received the committee’s directives and would work on them to advance the establishment of industrial parks in the country.
“What is being done here, a partnership between Barrick and the government, reflects the government’s commitment to implementing the Development Vision 2050 as well as the current Five-Year Development Plan up to 2031,” he said.
The Director General of TISEZA, Gilead Teri, said the authority was ready to oversee the industrial park to help realise the government’s broader plan of establishing such zones across the country.
He cited areas such as Mabibo in Dar es Salaam as examples where investment zones had already started showing progress.
Meanwhile, Buzwagi Industrial Park coordinator Pendo Matulanya said that by March 2026 at least 35 investors had already expressed interest in investing in the area, which is expected to boost revenue for Kahama Municipal Council.
She said that when the Buzwagi gold mine was operational it created more than 5,000 jobs and contributed around $4.1 million annually to the municipality’s revenue.
“After the mine’s closure, we decided to transform the site into a special investment zone in order to restore jobs and increase government revenues,” she said.
