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Govt move worries foreign CEOs
2005-08-16 08:45:31
By Guardian Reporter
Chief executives sourced from outside Tanzania by foreign investors may no longer be automatically granted work and residence permits by the government, even if they possess the skills required to serve at the top.
The new move came to the fore when the government last week turned down an application by Mwananchi Publications chief executive, David Waweru, to renew his work and residence permit.
Waweru, a Kenyan, has subsequently been given a 30-day deadline to leave the country and the company advised to look for a replacement, ”preferably a Tanzanian.”
Mwananchi Publications, a sister company of the Nairobi-based Nation Media Group, owns The Citizen, Sunday Citizen, Mwananchi and Mwanaspoti newspapers.
Reacting to the news of Waweru being asked to leave the country, a leading foreign investor told The Guardian that the decision by the government had sent ”shockwaves in established foreign firms and potential investors about the choice of top managers, especially, CEOs.”
The investor said that, unlike South Africa, which has in place an affirmative action in the form of Black Empowerment Act for the placement of deserving Black Africans at the helm of local firms, Tanzania labour laws are ”finite and only certain category of jobs could be reserved for locals.”
Immigration laws, the investor added, require firms (local and foreign) to furnish the relevant authorities with the credentials of senior staff sourced from outside the country, which are vetted and then passed onto Immigration department for the final nod and processing of relevant documents.
The government’s reluctance to renew Waweru’s permit comes barely two months after 12 other Kenyans, who worked for the same company, were ordered out of the country for lack of relevant documents.
Six of the 12 were even banned from entering Tanzanian territory after they were branded prohibited immigrants by the Immigration office in Dar es Salaam.
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