The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
13 May 2008
Regional business licensing agencies have been urged to speed up the pace of licensing investors.
The matter was raised during Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC) debates on empowerment in the Central Zone.
TNBC has wound up such countywide debates, council statement said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
It quoted TNBC executive secretary Dunstan Mrutu as telling regional commissioners (RCs) in the zone that licensing procedures were extremely difficult.
According to Mrutu, it takes more than a year for one to obtain a business licence in various regions in the country while the same licence can be obtained in six days in Singapore.
"It takes 359 days for one to obtain a business licence in Iringa and 528 days for one to obtain a business license in Kigoma.
This is not business friendly," he told the commissioners and other participants the last empowerment debate in Dodoma at the weekend.
RCs from the central regions pledged to hasten the pace of the zone's economic development.
Kigoma, Tabora, Morogoro, Singida and Dodoma RCs said they would cooperate with district leaders to design strategies that would develop the areas economically.
They noted that it would be vital for the Government to have a budget for an empowerment sensitisation to ultimately alleviate poverty.
"I think the empowerment sensitisation should have its own budget annually," said Kigoma RC Joseph Simbakalia.
His Tabora counterpart, Mr Abeid Mwinyimsa, concurred with him.
Morogoro RC Said Kalembo warned regional and district officials against keeping poverty alleviation documents in shelves without using their contents to stem deprivation.
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