Procurement Act draft presented to Mwakyembe

                                            Attorney General (AG) George Masaju.

KATARE MBASHIRU

THE LAW Reform Commission of Tanzania (LRCT) has released its preliminary report on the reformation of the Procurement Act, which has expressed divided opinions and views from stakeholders.

Attorney General (AG) George Masaju tasked the commission in December last year to work on four terms of reference that would later suggest how best the procurement law could be amended or overhauled.

The report was handed over to Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Dr Harrison Mwakyembe in Dar es Salaam for further legal procedures.

According to LRCT Chairman, Judge Aloysius Mujulizi, the commission initiated the review by calling for recommendations, suggestions and views from government institutions, the general public and other stakeholders.

The move came barely three weeks after President John Magufuli gave his speech to inaugurate parliament in which he hinted that the procurement law would be amended to seal loopholes for embezzlement of public funds.

During the inaugural speech in November last year, President Magufuli spoke at length how the public procurement law was being abused by unscrupulous suppliers who quote inflated and unrealistic prices of commodities, causing massive losses of public funds. Judge Mujulizi hinted that the preliminary report came up with two conflicting views from stakeholders who gave their opinion.

On one hand, he said many people who submitted their views suggested that basing on the state of the country and economy currently, the procurement law was outdated and hence the dire need to amend it immediately even as more research continues.

Views from the minority suggested that there were no problems with the procurement law. But the problem was on implementation of the legislation something that led to loss of government’s funds.

They suggested that the commission be given more time to assess and analyse views from stakeholders.

“We took a short time to release our report because of the importance of this law. Procurement constitutes 70 per cent of the country’s revenue.

Therefore this law is very important,’’ he noted. In analysing views from stakeholders, LRCT focused on various thematic areas including, value for money, market fundamentals and dynamics of the law, procurement process and procedural and institutional requirements, contradiction of laws and human factors (corruption and embezzlement).

“The laws are contradicting one another, whereas one law gives stiffer penalty and punishment to whoever contravenes its provisions, while another law mitigates the penalty, and this provides room for people to continue losing the country’s money due to that weakness,’’ he added.

Judge Mujulizi said his commission needed more time in order to analyse views provided by stakeholders before compiling the final report.

Speaking after receiving the report, Dr Mwakyembe said his team would spend the whole day and that today, he would submit that report to Finance and Planning Minister Dr Philip Mpango and later to the AG before the final decision on what should be done after the cabinet meeting.

Experience indicates that since 2001 when the Act was enacted for the first time, there were some difficulties in the implementation of the law so much that objectives for its enactment have not been achieved.

This phenomenon has persisted even when Parliament repealed and re-enacted the new Public Procurement Act in 2004. The procedural requirements, before making the actual purchase, are both cumbersome and costly.