Tanzania: How 17 industries were privatised only to die

Some 17 erstwhile public firms that were privatised under a plan initiated in 1993 in a bid to revamp production have so far been shut down after failing to deliver, a report released recently by a technical committee has revealed. The government had at that time decided to sell the wobbling public companies to private investors who, it was presumed, could revive them following the State’s lack of capacity to run them. According to the report which has been submitted to the Parliamentary Public Organisations Accounts Committee (POAC), 17 firms out of 74 which were privatised have since stopped operations altogether.