THE Infrastructure Development standing committee of the National Assembly has urged the government to review the Ports Act Cap 166 R.E 2017 to restore the responsibility of the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) for wharfage revenue collections.

Selemani Kakoso (Mpanda Rural), the committee chairman, raised the issue yesterday when tabling the committee's report on operations of the Ministry of Transport for 2023/24 and recommendations on the ministry’s estimates for the year 2024/25

He said that the change will help TPA to improve its performance and enable efficiency in revenue collection, seeking abrogation of amendments made in 2017 shifting wharfage collections to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), for depositing in a special account at the Bank of Tanzania (BoT).

This way, the port authorities have been compelled to submit applications for the funds for various operational purposes from the Treasury, he stated, asserting that wharfage collections have been growing, with expectations that by fiscal 2026/27 wharfage collections will reach 1.4trn/-.

During 2023/24 estimated collections are placed at 592bn/-, projected to climb to 792.49bn/- in the next financial year, with the committee feeling that TPA is one of the main sources of government revenue collection, piling up 22.6trn/- during 2022/23.

Key collections include customs charges, standing at 9.354trn/- being 41 percent of total collections at the port, in which case TPA needs to collect wharfage charges to have the ability to develop port infrastructure like building a new berth to increase the volume of cargo handling, he added.