THE SILVERDALE CASE: Invest in Tanzania’s conducive investor environment says Pinda

The Prime Minister

Mizengo Pinda

“agro processing ..a virgin sector yearning for investments”

Tanzanian PM assures foreign investors of support

By In2EastAfrica - Tue Mar 01, 9:46 pm

The Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda on Tuesday welcomed investors into the country, assuring them of the government determination to create conducive environment for doing business.

“We have made great strides in the economic front but still we have a lot of challenges ahead,” Premier Pinda told the Economist Tanzania Summit in Dar es Salaam.

However, he acknowledged that poor infrastructure, unskilled human resource and erratic power supply were factors that impede doing business.

He encouraged the private sector to effectively participate in the national development, citing agriculture, agro processing and mining as some of the country’s virgin sectors, yearning for investments.

The government focus, he said was on infrastructure development, investing heavily on human resource development and spearheading ICT for the country’s development.

“We, in the government, believe firmly that well developed ICT will have far reaching impacts on almost all sectors of the economy.”

Mr Pinda, describing himself as the peasant son, said the government was, through the ambitious Kilimo Kwanza initiative, determined to liberate majority Tanzanians out of abject poverty.

He said reforms were underway to address land related issues that impede commercial agriculture in the country. The reforms, according to the Premier, will cover financial sectors to allow speedy settlement of commercial disputes by the judiciary.

“Tanzania boasts of robust financial system that allows banks to operate—and, banking remains one area that is open for investments.”

Investors however decried power blackouts and poor infrastructure—roads, ports, railways and airports, which they said were making it difficult to trade in Tanzania.

They blamed the persistent power crisis to politics, challenging the government to look for the lasting solution to rescue the economy from total collapse.

Infotech Investment Group Executive Director Ali Mufuruki put the loss suffered by the national economy due to power problems at one trillion, a month.

Tanzania Revenue Authority, the government tax collection agency, has admitted to have lost over 800bn/- so far in uncollected revenues due to blackout.

Mr Mufuruki raised concern over the human resource problem in the country, saying: “Skills are a serious problem in Tanzania…I’m not exaggerating but we have university graduates who cannot express themselves in a few sentences, be it in English or Kiswahili.”

By MASATO MASATO, Tanzania Daily News

MR PINDA’S WELCOME

Moshi Police with AK47s attempting to gain unlawful entry onto Silverdale Farm in clear abuse of the law. Their intention was to frighten and intimidate the British investors. As they leave the officers can be heard to abuse the British investors shouting ‘if you don’t like it here go back to Zimbabwe’!