Govt sets up ‘business clinic’ in reform push

Dar es Salaam. The government has come up with an initiative that is aimed at speeding up the process of improving Tanzania’s business climate.

Industry, Trade and Investment minister Charles Mwijage launched the initiative – dubbed the Tanzania Business Clinic (TBC) – in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

The launch followed the recent adoption by the Cabinet of a blueprint meant to lay the groundwork for a raft of amendments to laws and regulations with a view to improving the business environment.

Mr Mwijage said TBC would identify and provide long and short-term solutions to challenges specific companies or sectors were grappling with.

“TBC is basically a platform that will consist of business experts and officials from public institutions and agencies that are closely linked to business operations. They will teach people about the best ways of doing business as well as policies and regulations guiding them,” he said.

The group will have its head office in Dar es Salaam and branches in all Small Industries Development Organisation (Sido) offices across the country.

“The platform comes after it was realised that efforts to come up with the Blueprint will be futile if the document will directly touch the targeted people,” Mr Mwijage said.

Presenting the 2018/19 Budget in Parliament last month, Finance and Planning minister Philip Mpango said implementation of the Blueprint would start during the 2018/19 financial year, which began on July 1.

“In a bid to stimulate industrial development, the government will direct more efforts in the implementation of the Blueprint for Regulatory Reform to Improve Business Environment for Tanzania in order to attract private sector investments, particularly in textiles; leather and meat; fish, edible oil; medicines and medical equipment; food and animal feeds; and mining,” Dr Mpango said.

These initiatives come after Tanzania put on a lacklustre performance in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report.

The blueprint – prepared after thorough consultations with various private sector associations and World Bank officials – will see the government initiate amendments of various laws including those governing value added tax; indicative prices for imports; immigration and labour; social security and environmental management, among others.

In the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 Report, which was released last year, Tanzania was ranked 137th among 190 economies surveyed. The country did particularly poorly in starting a business (ranked 162nd); construction permits (156th); trading across borders (182nd) and registering a property (142nd).

But Mr Mwijage is optimistic that if the Blueprint is embraced by both the business community and regulators, it would help to change the latter’s mind-set towards businesses.

He said a mind-set change would help the government to score “quick wins” in key sectors.

“We are currently focusing on industries that will consume raw materials which are locally produced so as to stimulate production and value addition.”

The government, Mr Mwijage noted, was also focusing on manufacturing industries that were crucial in job creation.

“We believe that these industries have what it takes to transform Tanzania into an inclusive middle-income economy in line with our growth aspirations,” he said, adding that more emphasis was also being put on the cooking oil and pharmaceutical industries.