The engaging, interactive Second Business Roundtable with the Government of Tanzania that took place on Thursday and Friday last week in Dar es Salaam was an eye-opener and provided deep insights on the workings of the Tanzanian government as far as creating conducive business environment in the country is concerned.
The roundtable meetings with the Government are organised by The Economist Group and seek to bring together the Government and the private sector to try to find solutions to problems that are obstacles to doing business in the country.
These include infrastructural problems such as congested ports, poor railways and roads, erratic power supply.
Other equally important problems include excessive bureaucracy in issuing business licenses, permits and other forms of documentation.
The theme of this year's meeting was Implementing Effective Policy during the Slowdown. President Jakaya Kikwete attended the meeting and officiated the morning session on the first day as he did last year. His frankness throughout the session portrayed him as a person who was committed to the free market economy.
The President said he was determined that Tanzania should continue with economic reforms to build a free market economy and that even the global conomic crisis would not deter those efforts.
"The current global economic crisis should not deter us from pursuing economic reforms and properly anchoring the private sector as the engine of growth of the Tanzanian economy.
Indeed, the crisis has reminded us of the crucial oversight role of the state in ensuring a robust regulatory environment and enforcement of standards in the financial sector," Mr Kikwete said.
In fact, Mr Kikwete's show of faith and commitment to reforms and the market economy were not new. Last year, he expressed similar sentiments.
"Reforms are here to stay. There is no turning back. We cannot allow that to happen. We just cannot go back to where we were decades ago. Reforms have been beneficial to Tanzania," he had told investors at the First Round Table Meeting with the Government of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam.
But despite the President's pronouncements on the commitment to reforms and the market economy, it was observed that not much has changed despite some improvements in some areas of the economy.
Mr Frank Braeken, executive vice-president of Unilever North, Central Africa and the Middle East regions, said at the meeting last week that it still took an average of 15 days to move a tea truck from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi compared to five days from Nairobi to Uganda.
Other businessmen said it cost about $1,500 (Sh2.6 million) to transport a container by sea from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, but it cost about $3,500 (Sh6 million) to move a container from Dar es Salaam to upcountry regions in the same country.
Ironically, even President Jakaya Kikwete expressed frustration at the level of bureaucracy in his own government.
And in an effort to show the extent of the problem, Mr Kikwete revealed on how he was shocked to learn that geological surveys now needed to be conducted before an individual or investor can be allowed to construct a house or a factory.
"I did not believe this was happening in Tanzania in this century. I mean why, on earth, should a geological survey be necessary in order to build a house in Dar es Salaam?"Mr Kikwete queried.
The meeting's moderator, Mr Richard Cockett, who is also the Africa Editor of The Economist told The Citizen in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the meeting on Thursday: "Tanzania is rhetorically committed to the free market economy at the senior government level.
This came up last year and also this year, but if you scratch the surface you find many government officials' mindset is still rooted in the socialist, parastatal mentality past, clearly rejecting, and not believing in the free market economy.
I suppose until there is a fundamental shift, Tanzania will always be lagging behind."
Mr Cockett said bureaucracy and negative mentality could partly explain the fact that despite the peace, stability and tranquility Tanzania had enjoyed since independence, socio-economic development was still comparable or just slightly higher than that of countries that had been ravaged by war for decades.
The head of the Tanzania Investment Centre, Mr Emmanuel Ole Naiko, said a taskforce to work on the problem of bureaucracy had been formed.
The team will compile and submit a report to the Government at the end of its assignment.
