THE fifth phase government industrialisation drive in the country have been felt in recent Himo Tanneries and Planters Limited in Kilimanjaro Region currently relying on domestically sourced raw materials.
Main activities of the company focus on leather tanning especially wet-blue ones and vegetable tanning, which were witnessed and admired by the Minister for Industries and Trade, Mr Innocent Bashungwa.
As the government builds industrial policy management capabilities among key actors, primarily through learning, the company’s Director, Mr Sabas Woiso, praised the government for coming up with a new industrial policy that he said encourages local investors.
He said that the path has inclusive development strategy that improves human development by raising wages and employment to the nationals.
Equally, Mr Woiso noted that the strategy increases and pulls resources available together through taxation to the State, where invests in social policies and collective goods become realized in many parts of the country.
He also appealed to the government through the relevant authorities to develop a programme that would provide education for some livestock keepers to abandon the practice of marking their livestock in areas, which interfere with their skin quality.
“In some cases we find skins with poor quality because they were poorly marked for identification, or poorly skinned, a move that reduces skin quality for the leather industry as we depend on them as our main raw materials,” he said.
However, the Director cited Geita, Mwanza, Simiyu and Kagera as regions with good skins and properly marked for identification of the animals.
In response to a 50/50 gender ratio representation at workplace for men and women, Mr Woiso said that the company’s management had achieved the goal.
On his part, Mr Bashungwa also praised the management of the Himo Tanneries for ensuring that they have 50/50 gender representation in their employment, a pattern which he said should be emulated by other employers.
He also applauded the management of the company after visiting them running with locally sourced raw materials like skins skinned from Tanzania livestock.
“Manufacturing leather products using local raw materials after adding their values, increases the income of our farmers and also raises the national economy due to the fact that we are using our own raw materials, hence you deserve to be congratulated,” he said.
He also called on other investors in the country to build a portfolio of investments that would focus on using local raw materials so that citizens can benefit as well to strengthen the national economy.
“May I also congratulate you for your future plans which you have outlined here aimed at strengthening your institution, because by doing so you will be supporting the government in its quest to create a mid-economy nation through industrialisation.
“Before the advent of the current industrial policy, we local investors were subjected to uncertainty as far as our operations were concerned, especially on securing local markets, but after the introduction of this policy, we are now confident of benefiting from the domestic market,” he added.
