DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's environmental watchdog said on Sunday it will now start issuing permission certificates to investors in three days' time, a move aimed at stimulating the east African nation's industrialization drive.
Vedasto Makota, the acting Director General of the National Environment Management Council (NEMC), said provisional environmental permission certificates would allow investors to continue mobilizing materials needed for their investments prior to commencement of production.
"Issuance of provisional permission certificates is designed to help the investor from unnecessary bureaucracy in the initial stages of investment procedures," Makota was speaking at a four-day capacity building training program for the NEMC's environmental technical personnel and other stakeholders on environmental evaluation and implementation in real estate and mining projects in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
He added: "We want investors to continue with their investment activities as NEMC continued with the process of the environment impact assessment."
Makota said that issuance of provisional permission certificates in three days' time would initially focus on investors in manufacturing industries that played a vital role in the industrial sector growth and development.
"The provisional permission certificates are very important to an investor because they will give an opportunity to continue with preliminary preparations while other environmental evaluations are underway," he said.
Initially, investors were not allowed to start preparations for their investments in manufacturing industries before being given environmental impact assessment certificates by NEMC and upon submission of their environmental management plans, Makota told Xinhua by telephone.
Makota, however, emphasized that the environmental watchdog will continue with its role of educating the public and investors on the importance of protecting the environment.
"Before the commencement of production, an investor will be required to present to NEMC the environmental management plan as a part of requirements to meet environmental protection standards," he said.
The move by the NEMC to issue provisional environmental permission certificates to investors in three days' time came hardly a week after the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) announced that the investment climate in Tanzania has tremendously improved where foreign direct investments (FDI) have also increased.
Last week, TIC Executive Director Godfrey Mwambe said the center has simplified investment procedures by putting all the services in one stop center, adding that the objective was to avoid bureaucracy and corruption.
According to TIC statistics, in the year 2016/17 alone, Tanzania has registered investments worth 4.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Tanzania was now a leading country for FDI flow in the Eastern African region, said Mwambe.
