'The story of my experience with Tanzania regulatory framework'
By Kevin Luande
Recently, there has been more discussions about the Tanzania Regulatory Framework, with many lamenting on the multitude of regulatory authorities and boards under different ministries. It is comforting to see that the cry has now echoed in the chambers of the Tanzania parliament, and even more, the recent remarks by the Hon. Kitila Mkumbo, Minister of Trade and Industry was more soothing. We now know that it was not a cry over spilled milk.
I know that there has been several efforts to change the status quo, the recent merger of Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), with Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA), which formed TISEZA is a case in point, and highly commendable. These efforts should be accelerated.
However, the devil is not only in the numbers. There is a more deep rooted problem to this than meets the eye.
It was the late father of our nation Julius Nyerere, who quipped to his comrades through his speech at a Pan African Congress in 1965. That is was getting more difficult to unite the African continent, as they had created an army of people who are accustomed to the title ‘Head of State’ and the perks that come with it.
Motorcades, gun salutes, first class travel, faces on their respective currencies, status, and so on so forth. It was not easy to vacate from this comfort zone. Alas! The would be new nation, namesake to Uncle Sam, The United States of Africa (USA), is yet to be realized. More poignant that the death of Nyerere and his comrades, was the death of the making of the United States of Africa. More on this later, back to our Regulatory Authorities.
The Tanzania Regulatory Framework faces a similar malady. The myriad of institutions we have created, have given birth to a big army of people accustomed with the title ‘CEO’ or ‘DIRECTOR’ and the perks that come with it. Per Diem, sitting allowances, business class travel, the off-road gas guzzlers aka V8, and so on and so forth. This and other various reason will render the exercise of trimming the government more difficult, but is has to be done. Leaner governments tend to be, not only effective and cheaper to run, but also allows the growth of the private sector.
But let me reiterate, as I have already stated above, the devil is not only in the numbers. Many of these institutions have one common denominator, and that is the word ‘AUTHORITY’ This word is derived from a Latin noun, which can be translated to author, create, originate, influence, and yes, it can also mean power or command. But the terms power and command should not be construed with being muscular or strong.
Etymologically, authority means command of a particular subject because you have been educated about it, and or written publications on it, you are conversant on the subject, or you could be the inventor of the subject or theory. Many a times, I have seen field officers being given powers to rule over subjects they have no clue about.
Let me put this in a broader perspective. And here I will relate this with my daily job of a customs broker, doing cargo clearance in the various customs points in Tanzania and beyond. It was in December 2025, a client of mine who is in the hospitality industry had imported three containers of furniture from China for the expansion of his restaurant chain.
To cut the story short, I won’t go through the whole ordeal and the delays which occurred due to dwell time, port congestion and so on and so forth. Exactly 31st December 2025, after missing the target of opening the new restaurant early enough to leverage on the end of the year season when spending is high, we managed to finalize the process, taxes paid, customs verification done, and the trucks were already in the vicinity of the port to load the containers. Suddenly an officer from one of the regulatory authorities calls and informs my operations team not to load the containers as he was not present at the time of physical verification.
Normally when the shipment is marked for verification and assigned a customs officer, all authorities should be there to check if the specific requirements related to their authorities have been met. But for some reason he was not present, and was adamant that the containers should be reopened for him to check, as much as my colleagues plead with him.
I took the liberty of calling him personally to explain that we have already delayed the delivery of the cargo to our client, and that we are about to lose this client, and that the subject products were not for resell, but for our clients own use in his business expansion, but he wouldn’t barge. So there was no choice, we had to wait for him to come from wherever he was, and opened the containers for him, and as it if it was premeditated, as soon as the containers were opened, bang! He said the boxes were not marked with the origin of the goods. However, each box was stuck with an A4 size paper with all the info, including the words ‘Made in China’.
But his argument was, the country of origin has to be printed on the boxes.
And so, because he had the powers, or ‘authority’ he went on to issue a seizure notice, quoting a section on the merchandise marks act of 1963. As a result the trucks were sent back and the cargo had to remain in the port for another eight days as we played ping pong with the authority.
Now, a client who has imported products aimed at expanding business, which will result in more employment, more revenue to the tax man, and improved social wellbeing of the society at large, should be accorded a better treatment. These were not edible products, which you could argue that they might have health hazard to the end user, they were furniture. Instead of seizing the cargo, which resulted in huge losses in terms of additional storage and other port charges, and at the time when we are wrangling with congestion at our port, it should have been the interest of both the port and the client to release the cargo, as long as the client was already known, you just institute the penalty prescribed in the particular circumvented law, then each party can present its arguments, and if the client is found liable, will pay the due fine. But the business has to continue.
Field officers from different authorities should be conversant with the laws they operate under, and also capable of making wise decisions for the interest of the organizations they work for, the government at large and the client as well. All in all, a change of name from ‘authorities’ to ‘service’ organizations, parallel with the reduction of multitude authorities, will greatly improve the business environment in our country. At the time when the online commodity exchange aka, Tanzania Mercantile Exchange is fully operational, a special board for each cash crop is not necessary. I thinks so!
Kevin Luande is the Managing Director KED GLOBAL LOGISTICS LTD
