Ambassador Seif: We don’t have 43m acres for investors

With Middle East emerging economies also showing interest in setting foot in Tanzania in recent years.

There has been a series of Syrian exhibitions over the past three years or so, and earlier it was Turkey that raised an eyebrow with innovation and commercial events in Dar es Salaam. Egypt has also been noticeable in COMESA-related commerce as it is in the Africa region, etc.

It is expected that when senior government officials talk with foreign visitors wishing to put their feet on the ground, a realistic picture of what the country has to offer needs to emerge so that the discussion is fruitful.

A deceptively optimistic image leads to some errors being made in investment projections and often in the contracts, making it very difficult to rework them so as to avoid conflicts with other stakeholders in the country.

At times the more aggrieved party may even turn out to be the government, despite its being initially responsible for drawing up the contract with a foreign firm.

Something of this sort was in the air in anticipation of what happens if Russian investors start pouring into the country with the idea propounded by Zanzibar Second Vice-President Ambassador Seif Ali Iddi in their mind.

He is reported to have told would-be investors that Tanzania has been blessed with plenty of fertile land, so it’s upon investors to come and utilize it. This, unfortunately, does not tally with the situation on the ground.

Talking of there being plenty of fertile land to attract an investor isn’t a feasible proposition at the moment, in the wake of endless land conflicts pitting farmers against pastoralists.

Briefly put, plenty of precaution should have been taken into account by the Isles leader before issuing a blanket assurance that could scarcely be met – that of plenty of arable land.

Even long stretches of land which look empty and aren’t protected, in the sense of wildlife management, aren’t usually that free, because if they were we wouldn’t be having so many land conflicts in the country. No formula has seemingly been struck to make the two live peacefully together.

There were disconcerting reports from Simiyu region about an investor who even runs a private remand prison at his farm and commits abusive incidents against the local people, including an incident in which a woman was stripped naked by the farm guards and thrown into a cage accommodating male remandees.

Such baffling acts by some investors add to the mix in what Ambassador Seif expects from foreign investors, if they will be disposed to working with the local peasants, or cruel actions could follow.