Tanzania: Ngalula Re-Elected Tpsf Board Chairperson

THE Electoral Annual General Meeting of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) on Tuesday in Dar es Salaam unanimously re-elected Ms Angelina Ngalula the chairman of TPSF.

The election was by show of hands. After being re-elected, Ms Ngalula told the meeting that she will remain faithful to and defend scrupulously the values of TPSF, and that she will work very closely with the government to ensure the private sector plays a positive role in economic growth and national development.

She said unethical members of TPSF will lose membership.

"Those among us who will go against universal ethics in doing business must know very well that we shall reject them and allow the government to take appropriate action against them. The aim is to protect the image of TPSF." She also said that TPSF will help young people in the informal sector of the economy to grow and prosper, giving an example of struggling petty traders, vendors and motorcycle drivers (bodaboda).

The guest of honour, Minister of Industry and Trade, Geofrey Mwambe said Tanzania's financial sector has no justifiable reason for imposing prohibitive interests on loans they give to the private sector, because the banks themselves are enjoying reduced interest rate on money they are getting from the Bank of Tanzania.

Mr Mwambe said the government failed to grasp the logic for high interests on loans given to private sector borrowers. High interests on loans, he said, are crippling project initiatives by members of the private sector.

"The government has reduced interest rate to seven per cent. We expect you, too, to reduce interest rates to enable the private sector to build projects with ease and successfully. High interests are slowing down the pace for starting projects by the private sector," he told the attentive meeting.

He equated loans to lubricants in an engine, saying the financial sector should give private sector borrowers reasonable interests on loans to make the private sector a true engine of the Tanzanian economy.

He also called on banks to develop credit reference system to be able to give borrowers with good repayment record loans on friendly interest rates.

Mr Mwambe told the meeting that if the private sector will exploit seriously opportunities in the agriculture sector, Tanzania will easily and quickly have its own indigenous billionaires and move steadily towards a strong self-reliant middleincome economy.

He called on the private sector to look for foreign markets for crops designated as strategic crops for national economic development, giving an example of 200,000 tonnes of cashew nuts that missed a foreign market simply because the private sector was not aggressive in looking for foreign markets for strategic crops.

He called on them to cooperate and support each other in looking for and sharing information on securing and preserving markets. Mr Mwambe told them to respect universal ethics in doing business and discard putrid ways of conducting business, like evading paying taxes and levies.