According
to the NSSF Director-General, Professor Godius Kahyarara, the pension fund will
invest over 34bn/- to revive the state milling and grain storage facilities in
Kyela District, Mbeya Region, Iringa, Dodoma and Mwanza with the four factories
said to be valued at 80bn/-.
“The
NMC factory at Iringa is in fact already operating - milling and packaging
maize meal (flour), which sells cheaply at just 40 per cent of the market
price,” said the NSSF chief, adding that the fund, in its five-year development
strategy, will ensure that all NMC mills in the four regions are reclaimed,
revived and put into active production.
Speaking
during the occasion to inaugurate Mafao House, a commercial complex built by
the NSSF as well as the PPF Plaza built by PPF Fund in Arusha, the Minister responsible
for Policy, Parliament, Labour, Youth, Employment and the Disabled, Ms Jenista
Mhagama, said a grand plan that will see social security schemes invest in new
factories will be rolled out at the end of this month.
“While
NSSF is working to revive the NMC facilities, I am on the other hand planning a
joint meeting with all pension funds in the country to plan the establishment
of new factories in the country, as well as reviving old but potential ones;
the president’s initiative to make Tanzania an industrialised country is not a
joke.
In
a few years’ time, this is going to be the case,” she said. On his part,
President Magufuli assured all pension schemes that plan to invest into
factories and other productive industries that the government will give them a
five-year tax holiday to help them gain ground.
“Many
foreign investors have in the past enjoyed tax holidays; this time it is our
own enterprises that will benefit from such incentives to boost local
investments,” the president stressed.
While
NMC granaries and mills are being revived in Mwanza, Mbeya, Iringa and Dodoma
regions, it is still not known what will happen to the National Milling
facilities located in the Unga Limited section of this city.
The
NMC property is being used by a local miller, Philemon Mollel, through his
Monaban Company Limited. Meanwhile, when NSSF together with its counterpart,
the PPF Fund jointly invited Dr Magufuli to inaugurate their two new commercial
complexes in Arusha; they probably expected the president to be impressed.
He
was not. “While these two high-rise buildings may look beautiful to the eye,
the amount invested into their constructions could have been channelled into
better projects such as industrial premises and factories, to boost employment
and increase state revenues,” the president pointed out.
He
reminded pension fund officials that the rate of occupancy in the commercial
buildings was astoundingly low, which reduced the towering structures into
white elephant projects.
Dr
Magufuli noted that the 60 billion/- invested by the two schemes for both
buildings could instead have financed a number of factories to boost production
for both local and export markets.
(With help of Daily News)
About TANZANIA INVESTEMENT ADVENTURERS
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