Tanzania: Public Entities to Allocate 30 Pc of Procurement Budgets to Special Groups

THE government will soon meet several stakeholders to form a special task force that will push for all public entities to allocate 30 per cent of their procurement budgets to special groups.

This was said by the Minister for Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, Dr Dorothy Gwajima, adding that the move comes at a time when it has been revealed that many public institutions were not allocating the said budget as per the requirement of the Public Procurement Act.

Dr Gwajima made the commitment of the plan during a one day seminar on public procurement provided to Tanzania Women Parliamentarians Group (TWPG) that was organized by the Tanzania Women Chamber of Commerce (TWCC) in collaboration with Trademark East Africa (TMEA)

The announcement by Dr Gwajima came after TWCC made an assessment on the implementation of the Procurement Act and its statutory regulations.

The law in its amendments made in Parliament in 2016 came up with a section demanding procurement entities to allocate at least 30 per cent of the procurement budgets to special groups (women, youth, elders and persons with disabilities).

This means, special groups are supposed to receive 30 per cent in all tenders advertised by government entities.

Presenting the assessment report before women parliamentarians, the Chef Executive Officer of the Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development (IMED), Dr Donath Olomi said the assessment report shows that a greater number of public institutions were either allocating less than 30 per cent to special groups or not allocating at all.

According to the study conducted by IMED, it is estimated that women-owned businesses exploit only one per cent of the public procurement market.

Dr Olomi said there is a need to improve the capacity building of special groups by having projects and programmes dedicated to raising awareness and skills of special groups to access public procurement opportunities.

The study suggests for the revision of public procurement regulations to require public entities to have a special office to facilitate access to public contracts by groups, information and the appeal procedure for tenders for procurement contracts must be in both official languages.

According to the study, TWCC and other associations can support awareness raising by developing and implementing awareness raising and capacity building initiatives and conducting regular surveys of their members. to establish their level of awareness, use of public procurement opportunities and challenges.

In August 2021, TMEA and TWCC commissioned the IMED to carry out a comprehensive review of SG participation in public procurement during of the past 5 years and to develop recommendations on how to deepen their involvement.

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