Tanzania Govt warns owners of divested parastatals


The government has issued a strong warning to privatised companies which fail to stick to the firms’ core functions, saying stern action would be taken against the defaulters.

Deputy Minister for Transport, Dr Charles Tizeba

The warning was sounded on Sunday by the Deputy Minister for Transport, Dr Charles Tizeba, when witnessing the acquisition of 175 buses by UDA Bus Company at the company’s premises at Kurasini in Dar es Salaam.

The deputy minister said during the past ten years the government had privatised over 400 companies, warning that those which failed to abide by the core functions of the sold firms would have their sale deeds revoked.

He lauded UDA for great strides it had made so far, saying the move by the bus company went a long way to supporting government efforts to curb transport blues in Dar es Salaam.

He said the government would continue to put in place conducive investment conditions in order to attract more local and foreign investors.

He called on Eicher India, manufacturers of the supplied buses, to consider setting up an assembly plant in Dar es Salaam because this would help to lower the prices of the buses.


For his part, Mr Simon Kisena, board chairman of Simon Group, which owns the bus company, said acquisition of the new buses was part of the firm’s plan to increase its fleet to 3000 buses by the end of this year.

Currently UDA has 105 buses operating on various routes around Dar es Salaam, which means that with acquisition of the 175 new buses the fleet would increase to 280 buses.

Mr Kisena said his company had already purchased 1000 new buses and when they arrived in the country UDA would be the largest passenger transporter in Africa.

He said the company also planned to purchase 50 executive buses from China which would be operated on a trial basis within the city of Dar es Salaam.

By ANTONY TAMBWE, Tanzania Daily News

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.