Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE National Assembly Speaker, Job Ndugai on Thursday directed the government to come up with a bill that will give the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) the mandate to perform the marking of diesel, petrol. and kerosene. Mr Ndugai said the bill must be tabled in the House before June 30, this year.
The Speaker gave the directives after the Minister for Energy, Dr Medard Kalemani tabled the ministry’s 2021/22 fiscal year budget. He said the TBS should be given legal power to mark fuel as proposed by lawmakers when debating the budget of the Ministry of Energy.
“We need to formulate a law that will ensure TBS has legal powers to do this job. The law must state categorically that the responsibilities for fuel marking in the country are performed by TBS,” he noted.
Mr Ndugai issued the directives after a number of legislators advised the government to come up with a provision to legally support TBS fuel marking task– an exercise which was taken over from a consortium of Global Fluids International (GFI).
The MPs said there is need for the government to modern equipment and training of its experts. Mr Hamis Tabasamu (Sengerema-CCM) asked the government to set aside a budget for TBS to purchase sophisticated machinery to identify counterfeit marking enzymes which according to him may not exceed 10bn/-.
He claimed that his life has been threatened by unknown people over his position on fuel marking business and that the matter has been reported to police.
“What we want is to see our country benefitting from this business, we must therefore equip TBS with necessary resources to perform this task,” he said.
Other MPs observed that if well equipped TBS could be in a good position to purchase the enzymes in countries where they are produced and conduct quality fuel marking that meets international standards.
Mr Ahmed Shabiby (Gairo CCM) insisted on commissioning the tasks to TBS, saying they should not be worried in case the bureau carries the task at high cost because the money will remain within the country for the implementation of other development projects.
Ukonga MP Jerry Slaa (CCM) said the government should be alerted and open up on the matter because it is sensitive, otherwise TBS may be overwhelmed by external pressure.
Early this year, the Minister for Energy, Dr Medard Kalemani made an impromptu visit at Dar es Salaam Port fuel terminal and found tankers loading unmarked fuel destined for the local market.
He thereafter ordered TBS to take over the fuel marking exercise. The minister’s visit followed debate in parliament which was provoked by Gairo lawmaker, Mr Shabiby who suggested that the government should assign the role to TBS to save consumers from paying hefty prices for the service which was carried out by the GFI consortium.
The company charged 14/- per litre for the service
