EDITORIAL: TAKE EXPERTS’ ADVICE ON INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
The Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI) has categorically called upon the government in general, and the relevant regulatory authorities in particular, to focus on “facilitating industrial growth”.
This is instead of them putting so “much effort in doing business and collecting revenues,” the CTI co-founder and its first chairman, Mr Juma Mwapachu, told the 28th Annual General Meeting and Symposium on Implementation of CTI’s Strategic Plan-2021.
Briefly, the CTI Plan is for and about “effective advocacy in improving the country’s business environment”. This is more or less in line with the Government’s own Blueprint for Regulatory Reforms to Improve the Business Environment (BRRIBE) devised by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in April 2018.
The Blueprint is the Government’s main framework for enabling a holistic review of business-enabling environment (BEE) in order to improve the country’s business climate. In that regard, the Blueprint identifies the key challenges that adversely impact the business environment in Tanzania – and also a set of recommendations for reform intended to put in place a more business-friendly environment.
It is perhaps with this in mind that Mr Mwapachu decries the presence of “too many executive agencies wanting to make money from numerous fees and charges, so that they can pay out dividends” at the end of it all. In this, Mr Mwapachu’s views were virtually supported by the immediate-past CTI Chairman, Mr Samuel Nyantahe, and the current Chairman, Mr Paul Makanza.
We urge the government to heed our industrialists and other experts on this. That is if Tanzania is to excel in its newly-acquired membership of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) arrangements.
This would also enable it to do better within the East African Community, the Southern African Development Community, and in its National Development Vision-2025 – as well as surmount the stiff competition in international trade and investments.
FARMING: MAKE THE MOST OF ICT
Recent calls by Sagcot on bolstering Agriculture, and by Vodacom Tanzania on increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), are as timely as they are appropriate and practicable. Last week, the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) Chief Executive Officer, Mr Geoffrey Kirenga, stressed “the need to improve the country’s agricultural environment so as to attract the youth into farming”.
For her part, the Vodacom Head of the Network and Digital Department, Ms Yvonne Bayona, said if ICT systems were “well-utilised, this would increase production, revenues and growth of the Economy”. Both were speaking at a special symposium in Dar es Salaam over the weekend to dialogue on Tanzania’s agriculture.
Noting that the global population is projected to rise from seven billion souls today to ten billion by 2050, Mr Kirenga stressed the dire need to functionally invest in agriculture so as to sustainably feed the billions of consumers.
In more-or-less similar vein, Ms Bayona urged the relevant authorities – including especially the government – to reduce taxes and other charges on ICT equipment and related systems, thus attracting more participants, including investors and the youth, into agriculture – and, especially, commercial farming. The government should take up the challenge.
