Tanzanians to keep their jobs even as government shuts down white elephant state corporations

Tanzania will soon be closing down all state-owned entities that are proving to be white elephant investments in the country.

Head of State, Samia Suluhu Hassan points out that her government pumps more than USD 30 billion to fund a number of public enterprises yet many of them remain non-productive burdens to the country.

“There are some government institutions and agencies that have refused to grow, still suckling money from state coffers, the country cannot afford to keep breastfeeding them,” President Samia maintained.

The President was addressing more than 600 executives and board chairs of government institutions, agencies and corporations during their three-day working meeting sessions in Arusha City.

According to Mama Samia, the aim of the government to invest in public institutions was in expectation that such entities will be generating profits to assist the government service the national budgets.

“If managed well, public enterprises could generate massive income enough to fund national projects, fill in the budget deficits and other services, but in Tanzania many of these entities only drain money,” she said, concluding that their time should now be up.  

But the President also warned that there were some officials in the Ministries that have been soliciting money from public institutions to fund their operations including foreign trips, excursions and other unnecessary provisions.

“I therefore order the Ministers, Permanent Secretaries in a number of Ministries to stop forcing heads of institutions to fund their activities, budgets or meetings,” she declared.

In the same vein of patching up and pruning out underperforming public institutions in the country, Tanzania is also contemplating to start merging other state-run organizations with overlapping responsibilities.

It was observed that there are a number of institutions and agencies in the country doing or repeating similar duties and tasks but under different descriptions. These will now be either merged or some of them deleted.

“But  while undertaking these major transformations in public institutions and corporations none of the workers of such organizations will be laid off, only moved to different firms and departments,” stated President Samia.

The Registrar of Treasury, Dr Nehemiah Mchechu said there are ongoing efforts to reform public institutions and through the initiative, a total of 28 such entities have now started to be self-sustaining and some event generating profits.

Mchechu however admitted that it was high time that the non-performers be taken off the national manifest.