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New strategy to attract investors
2007-01-25 10:26:49
By Peter Tindwa
The government has said it will build satellite towns as part of a national initiative to attract local and foreign investors.
Speaking at a workshop on the formulation of a programme for the Dar es Salaam pilot project, Planning, Economy and Empowerment Minister Juma Ngasongwa said preparations were under way to build the towns.
The project, which will initially cover only Dar es Salaam, is set to get assistance from experts from the capital Moscow and United Nations-HABITAT.
It would later be implemented also in Coast Region`s Bagamoyo and Kibaha districts.
Dr Ngasongwa said data on the satellite towns would be available online for use by investors, noting that it was all in line with the government`s determination to ensure that Tanzania does not have a class of landless people.
He explained that the law makes it possible for any person to acquire land in the village of his or her residence through Village Land Act of 1999, the same also applying to non-citizens.
``Our land laws are conscious of the fact that land supports the livelihood of the vast majority of our people and that it is land that employs the most people through the cultivation of food and cash crops,`` stated the minister.
The minister said United Nations Population Fund estimates show that Tanzania would have a population of 82.7 million by 2050 if the current population growth of 2.3 per cent is not controlled. That would be up from over 34 million in 2002 and about 38 million currently.
He added that the cabinet has endorsed a new population policy that might be made public this March.
Meanwhile, Tanzania Investment Centre Executive Director Emmanuel ole Naiko has said Tanzania`s land management system does not favour villagers seeking to access loans for investment purposes.
Addressing a workshop on the development of territorial planning and urban documentation in Dar es Salaam yesterday, he gave that as one of the main reasons many villagers in the country own pieces of land that is yet to be surveyed.
``About 95 per cent of village land in Tanzania is not surveyed and villages that own that land do not have land ownership titles.
This means that the villagers will continue to suffer unless the government gets the funds needed to survey the land and allocate it to villagers,`` he explained.
The TIC chief said that there was a need of demarcating village land so that it is entered into the TIC Land Bank, ``thus enabling villagers to promote their own land for later sale or lease or to make it possible for them to get into joint ventures with local and foreign investors``.
He pointed out that the pilot project earmarked for Dar es Salaam was in implementation of a long-term national strategy of creating an automated information system for the country using Moscow`s experience as a base.
Noting that Tanzanian law has charged TIC with the responsibility of facilitating the provision of land for development to foreign investors, Ole Naiko said the government had directed that all 21 regions in mainland Tanzania identify land suitable for investments and that a total of 2.5 million hectares of such land had been identified by 2004.
He added that 166,708 hectares out of the total was government land, while 367,849 hectares was local government land and 143,701 hectares privately owned.
``In total 678,241 hectares were identified as surveyed land and 1,849,021 hectares were unsurveyed land,`` he said, adding that his centre was confident of having enough parcels of land where investors could safely invest.
The TIC chief noted that land surveying in Tanzania was difficult and tedious, mainly because the poor state of surveying equipment ``makes it necessary for the sketching of land parcels to be done manually``.
The result is that the identification of land parcels for investments purposes becomes difficult and there are many measurement errors in land allocations are frequently done with measurement errors, he said.
He revealed that, through TIC, the government has begun addressing land-linked problems through the pilot project in Dar es Salaam.
He said the project was meant to stimulate the identification of the latest maps, complete with boundaries, location addresses and other specifications like potential investment opportunities and support services such as infrastructure.
The data could be accessed via Internet alongside information on the availability of power, water, and other social services.
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