Who's for privatisation? (Tanzania).

Calls for one of Tanzania's most powerful and strategic institutions to be probed are getting louder and louder. The Presidential Parasratatal Sector Reform Commission (PPSRC) which is overseeing the country's privatisation programme, has come under fire for doing a "shoddy job" and therefore ought to be investigated. However, the privatisation programme is going ahead despite the criticisms

The government has privarised more than three-quarters of its 369 parasratatals since 1992. Initially, the programme went on smoothly. But as larger and strategic companies (including the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority, National Investment Corporation and Tanzania Railways Corporation) are targeted, public opinion is turning against the programme, claiming the government is selling the country to foreigners.

One of the parastatals targeted for privatisation, the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC), received the worst news ever in its history on 25 June when a goods train collided with a passenger train in Masagali in central Dodoma region, killing at least 200 people.

In March, 46 MPs from the ruling CCM party, led by Thomas Nyimbo, sent a protest note to the speaker of the House with an intention to table a motion in parliament to have the PPSRC investigated for "its questionable performance".

The MPs action came hard on the heels of a government announcement to contract the South African Net Group Solution to manage the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) and steer it to privatisation.

Some of the MPs complained that procedures - including advertising tenders -- were floured in awarding the contract. President Benjamin Mkapa retorted: "TANESCO is mismanaged and its funds grossly misused."

Two years ago, the country's largest bank, the National Bank of Commerce, was sold to Amalgamated Banks of South Africa at a "throwaway price" of Tsh 15bn. Early this year, Tanganyika Packers, once the country's largest meat processing company, was sold to Al Ghurair Investments of the United Arab Emirates that will build a shopping mall instead of a desperately needed meat plant.

Since Tanganyika Packers was closed in the 1980s, Tanzania has lacked a buoyant meat processing plant for export for a country whose cattle population exceeds 14 million heads. As a result, a lot of cattle, goats and sheep are smuggled our of the country.

The fact that some parastatal buyers have turned the privatised factories into stores or other products of their choice, has aroused many questions in the public's mind.

Although the government has promised to rake "harsh measures" against dishonest buyers, including taking back the parastatals if anyone ran counter to the contract, it still believes that the merits of privatisation far outstrip its demerits.

According to President Mkapa: "It is nor only foreigners who are buying the parastatals. Tanzanians run 122 of the privatised companies. Foreigners own only 14 companies. The government has stakes in other companies in which local or foreign investors have shares. Still, employees of various companies are invited to buy shares."