Since incorporation in September 1996 and the start of trading in April 1998 to demutualisation and mobile trading, the bourse has definitely made a significant vista being number three on the continent to self list after that of Johannesburg in South Africa and Nairobi in Kenya.
With a capitalisation of 23,721.49, value of shares standing at 879.22 and Tanzania’s share index being 4,684.09 as of 2015, this is obviously a remarkable milestone.
As of July 2015 there were twenty-three listed firms, five corporate bonds and eight government bonds. Of the listed, 19 were companies listed in the first segment, and four in the second.
The bourse business put aside, at a grander scale, the country’s GDP has been growing at about 7 per cent over the past 10 years, described by economists as cultivating at a fairly reasonable speed. According to them, what is amiss is that it has not benefited many because it is taking place in economic terrains which do not involve the many people.
Hence, economic pundits have therefore advised us that to address this imbalance, more resources ought to be directed into areas where many citizens are involved. These include agriculture, service employment, mining, fisheries, livestock keeping, etc.
However, while more emphasis is directed to all these, leaders and development stakeholders alike, are oblivious of the fact that there is economic attrition taking place through economic instruments, such as the bourse, which we as Tanzanians, brag that we control them.
To be more precise, when you have more foreign firms listed in the bourse, just like you have more foreign comapnies in the country, and no Tanzanians own shares in them, what it means is that the citizens will only be left with jobs to do and the rest of the economic pie will remain foreign while they are all within this nation.
With the prevailing legal and administrative regime governing the operation of these economic tools, there can be nothing short of this. That is why despite the fact that the economy is growing at an impressive 7 percentage rate, its impact is hard felt across the bigger section of the society.
What then should be the way out? Certain specific measures ought to be taken at each specific institutional level and at the general level by reviewing the legal and policy regimes so as to have more citizens owing the bigger quiche of the economy - by reducing the prevailing economic attrition to some degree.
What is required at the level of the bourse, and other tools, for example, is to redesign the company legal regime and twist the investment climate so that all foreign firms operating in Tanzania should list with the bourse or should not take much of what they produce outside the country. Once this is done, locals should be enticed to purchase more shares from the stock exchange.
Outside the bourse, foreigners seeking to invest in Tanzania should be encouraged to have joint investments with Tanzanians instead of the current practice whereby there is no systematic programme or policy in setting up businesses in the country.
We believe, after a span of five to ten years, Tanzanians would not only find themselves owning big businesses, but would also own a big chunk of their economy in which there will be little attrition of economic benefits.
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