Trimming of regulatory agencies gets close

DAILY NEWS Reporter

THE work to trim regulatory authorities and harmonize their activities is at advanced stages and is expected to be ready in March next year, the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investments, Mr Charles Mwijage has announced.

Speaking at the CEO Roundtable gala dinner in Dar es Salaam on Saturday, the minister said a task force appointed to work on the matter would finish their work in March so that their recommendations could be worked out and necessary changes proposed for the 2017/2018 budget. "We are working on this.

The task force will finish its work in March so that the decisions can be included in the 2017/18 budget," said the minister. The private sector have complained of being subjected to red tapes and undue high cost of doing business due to presence of many regulatory bodies whose mandates are overlapping.

The regulatory bodies charge various levies and fees for the development of their operational costs which increase cost of doing business in Tanzania.

The Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI) has been advocating for reform of the current regulatory system and improve coordination of the regulatory tasks. It has called for harmonisation and rationalisation of fees and levies charged by these regulatory bodies in order to reduce costs of doing business in Tanzania.

The minister said the government was working closely with the private sector towards improving the business environment and speeding up economic development.

"The government is committed to work with the private sector and shall go an extra mile to make sure the business environment improves and becomes more conducive," he said.

The World Bank published their ‘2017 Ease of Doing Business Report’ last month where Tanzania performed impressively climbing twelve places in the world ranking.

The East Africa's second largest economy moved 12 positions up, from 144 in 2016 to 132 in 2017, in the latest World Bank (WB) Ease of Doing Business report issued in October 2016.

This upward trajectory is largely due to the substantial reforms over the past year in four key areas: business licensing, land reforms, easy registration of businesses and people’s registration