THE Tanzania Private Sector Federation (TPSF) has amended its constitution where it has recognized the start-up sector as part of its important clusters.

Addressing editors yesterday in Dar es Salaam about the amendment, Raphael Maganga TPSF’s Chief Executive Officer said that the constitutional amendments have led to the institution's name rebranding to the Tanzania Private Sector Federation.

According to him, the amendments were approved by the Federation’s general meeting held on November 20, 2024. 

The meeting was attended by more than 70 percent of the TPSF members and the agenda was to make improvements to the constitution.

The amendments were aimed at increasing the participation of clusters that had no representation in the TPSF system, strengthening the advocacy of the private sector and the business community in the country from the district, regional and national levels, thus ensuring the improvement of the business doing environment in the country.

The improvements also considered the resolutions of the two consecutive sessions of the Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC) held on June 7, 2022 and June 9, 2023 where President Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan suggested that improvements be made that will attract more stakeholders from the private sector.

Maganga said this is the right way to make TPSF build a coordinated, disciplined and compliant private sector.

"In the current reforms, the Federation will be led by a governing council that will deal with members and their challenges. There will be an executive committee that will be formed to increase the efficiency of decision-making in the activities of the Federation in order to build good corporate governance," he said.

Through the new system, he said, there will be 25 cluster representatives, the same number as TNBC representatives instead of the previous 10 clusters.

The formulation of the cluster has focused on economic sectors and other sectors to ensure that each individual sector is properly represented and that existing gaps are fixed.

Maganga said unlike the previous where there was no executive committee, the board was mandated with both representation and managing roles. 

In these constitutional reforms, the roles will be managed by the executive committee to guarantee the operation sustainability of the Federation.

To ensure that there is a collaborative system, the Federation has added representatives and important groups that previously did not exist such as women, youth businesses, Startups, breeding, fishing, health, education, sports, creativity, technology and communication, digital economy, and increased representation from Zanzibar

This is different from before where there was no participation and representation of those groups. Other areas specified in the constitution reforms are to promote the participation of members and the efficiency of the private sector in TNBC. 

Zahoro Muhaji, CEO Tanzania Startup Association, said that the reforms in the constitution make stakeholders from the startup sector new beneficiaries who will have a cluster among the 25.

"The startup industry has been growing and this is one of the results of its growth. This industry in the last four years has attracted investments worth $300 million;

Between January and September this year, Tanzanian startups have attracted investments worth more than $54 million. This is a sector that carries many young people," said Muhaji.

Mercy Sila, President Tanzania Women Chamber of Commerce (TWCC) said the constitutional amendments have taken into account the recommendations of the members. 

She said that there was already a women's small businesses cluster where TPSF becoming a Federation will expand the scope of opportunities for women. 

"This federation is an important platform in influencing policies concerning women and youth so that they can be discussed and made decisions in TNBC," said Sila.