The government of Tanzania recently presented in Parliament a proposal to amend the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act and withdraw from international arbitrations.
The current PPP legal framework provides an important instrument for attracting private investments to join hand with the Tanzanian government.
In presenting the recommendations of the PPP (Amendment) Bill, 2018, Tanzania’s Minister for Finance and Planning Philip Mpango explained that the amendments were addressing gaps in the current law and aimed at improving the implementation of PPP projects.
However, the latest presented amendments propose to resolve disputes with private entities by local courts, and not by international arbitration bodies.
Analysts argue that this could make Tanzania less attractive to foreign investors and limit Tanzania’s capacity to do business with international financial institutions like the World Bank (WB) and its affiliated International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
In reply to that, Attorney General Adelardus Kilangi told Parliament that local courts were better placed to resolve investment disputes than the international arbitration bodies.
