THE Solicitor General’s Office has in the current financial year saved 1.51trn/- from arbitration claims filed by nine domestic and foreign claimants in local and international arbitration tribunals.

Dr Pindi Chana, the Constitutional and Legal Affairs minister, made this observation in the  National Assembly yesterday when tabling the 2024/25 budget estimates tuned at 441.26bn/-.

Of the nine arbitration claims three were filed by foreign plaintiffs, she said, noting that the Solicitor General’s Office is currently handling 160 arbitration claims filed by domestic and foreign respondents,” said Dr Chana.

The office won 705 litigation claims where it saved 396.20bn/-, after saving 10.21bn/- from 43 claims, she said, elaborating that as of this month the office has responded to 7,813 litigation claims.

The vast majority were domestic claims, numbering 7,798 where 762 claims resolved, with 12 emanating from outside, she stated hinting at efforts during the current financial year to set up the Tanzania International Arbitration Center (TIAC).

An online entry says that TIAC is a company limited by guarantee established in 2019 to provide alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services, which include international and domestic commercial arbitration, adjudication, mediation and conciliation and is operationally independent from the government by maintaining a high quality panel of consultant solicitors.

The minister said the government has started preparations for drafting the National Criminal Justice Policy, chiefly meant to design safe ways for sharing information about crime, evidence, crime investigation, crime proceedings, judgments, control of prisoners and the release of prisoners finishing custodial terms.

In improving court services, the ministry has during the year sought to strengthen information, communication and technology (ICT) services. It has supplied 24 video conference sets to 24 regional magistrate’s courts, extending five table computers alongside 86 laptops, 13 printers and one television set.

The ministry has enhanced efficiency in various operational systems, including e-project management, e-library, e-wakili, e-court broker, installed a process server and rolling out the judicial portal, she explained.

Regarding preparations to make further progress in pursuing demands for a new constitution, she said the government reached out to 267,323 individuals in various locations on what the constitutional demands involved.

The manpower status in the ministry shows that the National Prosecution Office has 663 advocates, 1,095 officials monitoring court proceedings and 233 detectives, while the Attorney General’s Office has 177 servants, 106 being advocates.

She said that the judicial system has a shortage of specialist advocates in fields like gas, fuel, investment, aviation and mining litigation apart from the blue economy, posing difficulties in handling local and foreign contracts.

'The shortage of advocates is contrary to the Advocates Act, Cap 341, R.E. 2024 which emphasizes on the training of enough specialised advocates,’ she stressed.

Oran Njeza (Mbeya Rural), the parliamentary Budget committee chairman, said that the country is facing a shortage of primary courts, with 960 such courts while the statutory requirement is 3,959 courts.

Upwards of 70 percent of filed cases are handled at the primary court level, in which case the shortage of primary courts leads to delays in hearing cases, he said, informing the House that the committee urged building enough primary courts, cutting pending cases to one percent of cases from the current five percent.

The courts face manpower shortages and vehicles for daily operations, holding 4,685 vehicles against the statutory requirement of 6,247 vehicles.

The judiciary wants a permit to recruit 1,562 officers of whom 181 are to be assigned as resident magistrates during fiscal 2024/25, while it also needs 60 more vehicles to the 586 the department holds at present, he added.