Africa-Press – Tanzania. DEPUTY Minister of State in the President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance) Deogratious Ndejembi has directed the Property and Business Formalisation Programme (PBFP) to focus on the improvement of the youth’s wellbeing.
He said young people were the largest population whose talents and activities had not been formalised.
PBFP that started operating in 2004 has uplifted only 5 per cent of the informal sector in the country from poverty and thus the deputy minister believes there is still more to be done if the strategy is smartly crafted to benefit young people in the country.
“There will always be a shortage of funds, but it is high time PBFP’s strategies and programmes were also coordinated by other offices as the Office of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development and the President’ Office (Regional Administration and Local Government).”
Mr Ndejembi further said PBFP should intensify its strategy to reach a wider population, especially people at the grassroots.
He said strategically, PBFP should make the people access information on their activities and aims. Until now PBFP has reached 52 councils across Mainland Tanzania out of 182 councils.
“We need to move fast to ensure more Tanzanians benefit from this programme. Most challenges facing the programme include land disputes that put the country’s peace at risk,” said Mr Ndejembi, adding that more than 60 per cent of the Tanzania’s population engaged in the informal sector.
This population should be financially supported to ensure their businesses are sustainable even after being formalised.
Commenting, PBFP Programme Coordinator and Chief Executive Office, Dr Seraphia Mgembe, said her office had prepared a new strategy to increase the number of formalised businesses and properties by 10 per cent in 2025.
She further said there were over 25,000 land disputes registered before the programme and 64 per cent of them had been settled.
She said the programme had helped members the public both farmers and traders to use their land and properties to borrow over 1.06trn/- from financial institutions and improveproduction.
“PBFP,” she said, “has been able to formalise 113,000 plantations in rural areas and 10,977 plots in urban areas.”
“We have been working together with councils and government departments, including the Tanzania Revenue Authority and Small Industries Development Organisation,” she said, detailing that to facilitate trade formalisation, the programme had helped to establish 11 business centres in Mainland Tanzania and one in Zanzibar.
She said the programme had also helped in revenue collection and increased the value of land in areas it operated.
