Treasury Registrar’s Office Holds Key to Tanzania’s Investments

Dar es Salaam. The Office of Treasury Registrar (OTR) is among the key government’s bodies which hold the fate of this nation, due to the critical roles that it plays.

OTR was established as a Corporation Sole through the Treasury Registrar Ordinance Cap 418 of 1959 purposefully for holding and overseeing all government investments and other properties including investments comprising paid-up capital of public and statutory corporations as well as in private investments where the government owns shares or interests in trust for the President.

The birth of today’s OTR, whose responsibilities have been divided into four groups, namely, supervisory role, custodianship, advisory role and privatization, came after the revision of the Cap in 2002, with a view to improving the office’s performance and eventually shaping the performance of public entities.

However, it is a plain reality that the amendments which were made in 2002 in relation to OTR, were not sufficient to improve its role in moulding the performance of the public parastatals as per the government’s wishes.

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This assertion could be attested to the 2010 revisions that were meant to strengthen the role of the office, which currently has 309 public entities under its watchdog, with a total investment capital of a whopping Sh76 trillion, according to the Treasury Registrar (TR), Mr Nehemiah Mchechu.

In a bid to pave a way for return in investments, the 2010 revisions saw the role of OTR strengthened by vesting the Treasury Registrar with more powers and responsibilities for him/her to perform his/her objectives accountably, efficiently and effectively.

Mr Mchechu yesterday expressed his office’s commitment to safeguarding and effectively overseeing government’s investments in both Public and Statutory Corporations, through collective responsibility of all key stakeholders.

“We are determined to be the most effective and efficient oversight body for public and statutory corporations,” Mr Mchechu asserted confidently.