Dar es Salaam. When the government tabled three
bills on energy for debate in Parliament under a certificate of urgency,
the move was strongly opposed by the opposition, industry stakeholders
and civil society organisations (CSOs).
Some of the
stakeholders and organisations which opposed the bills attended a short
ceremony at State House when President Jakaya Kikwete assented to the
contested bills on Tuesday and said they would continue pushing for
amendments in the contentious areas.
“We cannot be
happy with everything at the same time. However, we will continue
discussing with the government to ensure that contested issues are
resolved on the way,” said Mr Semkae Kilonzo, the Policy Forum
coordinator.
Policy Forum, which is made up of a
network of over 70 non-governmental organisations, was one of several
CSOs that urged the government to drop the three bills namely, Tanzania
Extractive Industries (Transparency and Accountability) Act; the Oil and
Gas Revenue Management Act; and the Petroleum Act, all of 2015, saying
they needed improvements.
Mr Kilonzo hinted that there
are many positive provisions in the legislations, but there are a few
issues that needed to be fixed for more transparency and clarity.
He
mentioned an example of the Tanzania Extractive Industry Transparency
Initiative (Teiti) which is supposed to be an independent agency instead
of being under the Ministry of Energy and Minerals as stipulated in the
new law.
Senior regional associate (Africa) at Natural
Resource Governance Institute Mr Silas Olan’g said the process of
formulating the Petroleum Act did not involve stakeholders, including
investors the oil and gas industry.
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