Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA)
Delays in cargo release and Tanzania Revenue
Authority (TRA)’s verification process at the Dar es Salaam Port are
some of the obstacles the country’s manufacturers cite as factors that
make them unable to compete.
This was according to the recent Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI) members’ survey results for 2015.
Responding to the question which required members to mention
obstacles they face when using the Dar es Salaam port, nearly 45 percent
of 67 respondents to this question cited delays in cargo release as one
of the stumbling blocks to their businesses’ competitiveness.
It is understood that when the manufacturers import raw materials
for different industrial uses, delay in release of the cargo forces them
to pay demurrage charges which add to the cost of doing business,
thereby making their products uncompetitive.
On the same question, the survey also shows that 40 percent of the
respondents cited TRA’s long cargo verification process as an obstacle
to their business competitiveness while nearly 39 percent mentioned
multiple regulations by different regulatory authorities as posing
challenges to businesses.
The business communities have been complaining of many regulatory
authorities, which do similar regulatory functions each charging its own
fee, unlike in the neighbour countries of Uganda and Kenya.
The regulatory authorities being complained about include the
Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA), Tanzania Bureau of Standards
(TBS), Government Chemist Laboratory Agency (GCLA), the Atomic Energy,
National Environment Management Council (NEMC), Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA), and Fire and Rescue Brigade.
CTI members also pointed out that exorbitant charges for storage
and handling of cargo on one hand, and the use of foreign currency,
particularly the United States’ Dollar as medium of payment on the
other, are obstacles of business prosperity by 25 and 21 percent
respectively.
For local imports, the local manufacturers are given a 7-day
storage free of charge period, including Sundays and public holidays
from the day of the consignment’s acceptance by the authority in the
port.
However, it’s very rare for a particular import to be removed
within the seven-day period because of, among other things, bureaucratic
procedures as well as tedious verification processes at the port, which
increases the cost of doing business to Tanzanian manufacturers.
In fact, when manufacturers were asked on time taken to clear cargo
from the Dar es Salaam Port, the survey results revealed that 32
percent of 57 respondents to this question spent between 7 and 14 days
to have their cargo completely cleared. This implies that majority of
the importers had to be subjected to storage charges and or demurrages
before they got their consignments.
Further findings on the same question indicate that 21 percent of
57 CTI importers who responded to this question said they used between
14 and 21 days before the port released their cargo while 12 percent
said it took them between 21 and 30 days.
Likewise, 11 percent of the 57 respondent to the question said it
was taking more than 30 days to have their cargo released from the port
while it was only 16 percent who could have their cargo released between
1 and 7 days from the day of their cargo arrival at the port.
On uplift of cargo value, which is being seen as one or the causes
for the delays of cargo release at the Dar es Salaam port, CTI members
have indicate that 46 percent of the 67 respondents of this question had
their cargo values very often uplifted while 25 percent had their
cargos values often uplifted.
Likewise, another 22 percent of 67 respondents said they had their
cargo sometimes face value uplift and it was only 5 percent whose cargo
never faces value uplift by TRA.
The effect of such haphazard value uplift by TRA has been that the
disputes between importers and TRA take too long to be resolved,
attracting huge demurrage as well as storage charges. This adds to
unnecessary cost of doing business to the local manufacturers, again
making them uncompetitive.
In order to address the challenges importers face, CTI members have
suggested, among other things, that the government needs to institute a
single payment point for all charges; apply the same measures which
addressed uplift of car values to the importers of raw material or make
TRA accountable for unnecessary storage charges occasioned by
unjustified uplift.
Also the survey results show that for the challenges the importers
face to be resolved, TRA staff should be frequently updated on the
pricing of commodities in the world market, and consider to completely
exempt from the verification process of regular importers who have never
defaulted thereby leading to fast clearance.
It is also the respondents’ views that TRA and the port authority
should meet frequently with importers, streamline clearing processes
that can be carried out before the ship arrived at the port, abolish the
Inland Container Depots (ICDs) costs and declare the ICDs extensions of
the port. This will address the problem of some unjustified charges by
the ICDs.
