About the Ministry

The government recognizes that availability of efficient and affordable transport is a crucial condition for economic development and poverty reduction. Hence, adequate transport infrastructure and services are key factors in Tanzania's efforts to promote growth and reduce poverty. Transport is seriously considered to be the Engine of Socio-economic growth in Tanzania.

The Ministry of Infrastructure is responsible for:
- Formulation of sectoral policies
- Oversee implementation of those policies, the objectives being to ensure for enhance performance of sector, and also to provide optimal contribution to national social economic development. This ministry's goals are summarized by the vision and mission defined here under:

Vision
To have high quality, efficient, cost-effective and self-sustaining construction industry, transport and meteorology infrastructure and services that adequately facilitates social-economic development of Tanzania by year 2025.

Mission
To facilitate provision of an economic, safe and reliable constriction industry, transport and services, meteorology, electrical and mechanical services, government buildings and stores that meet the needs of the public through development and implementation of appropriate sector policies, strategies and standards.

Transport Sector Policies
In order to address the shortcomings in the transport system and to achieve sustained development of the sector a National Transport Policy (NTP) was put in place in 2003. The vision of the Transport Sector is to have "Safe and efficient transport services for all".

The transport infrastructure system in Tanzania consists of road, railway, air, water and pipeline modes. The total road network length is 85,517 km including trunk and regional roads (28,892 km) which are under MoID while the urban, district and feeder roads with a total of 56,625 km are under Local Government Authorities. The Tanzania railway system has a total length of 3,676 km of which 2,706 km is operated by Tanzania Railway Limited (TRL) and 975 km by Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA). There are three major sea ports, Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara, and several inland ports. There are four international airports namely: Julius Nyerere, Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar and Mwanza. The pipeline system consists of 1,750 km used to transport crude oil products from Dar es Salaam to Ndola refinery in Zambia, and 232 km used to transport natural gas from Songo Songo to Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania is in the process of putting in place a PPP Policy and Regulatory Framework to enable the private sector to actively engage in the infrastructure development agenda of the country. With a view of attaining national strategic goals, the Government of Tanzania has prepared a Ten Year Transport Sector Investment Programme (TSIP) as a roadmap towards achieving the goals. The TSIP is planned to be implemented in two phases of 5 years each from financial year 2007/08 to 2016/17. The programme resource requirement for the Phase One of the TSIP is USD 6,192.52 million for implementing various development projects, maintenance of existing facilities, institutional support and cross cutting issues.

Institutional Sector Reforms
The Government has made a notable progress in the transport sector. In order to support economic growth, several reforms have been realized. Among the reforms is the transforming into semi autonomous agencies whose functions are of operational or service delivery nature. Operational Agencies are Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS), Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA), Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA), Tanzania Government Flight Agency (TGFA), and Tanzania Electrical, Mechanical and Electronic Services Agency (TEMESA).

Reforms have also resulted into the establishment of transport regulatory authorities that include Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) and the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA).

The reforms include increasing Private Sector Participation in the Transport Sector through management contracts and/or outright sale of parastatals. Furthermore a strategy for the operations of TAZARA as well as the other revenue units of Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) and those of the Marine Services Company (MSC) is being finalized. The establishment of Roads Fund Board has shown positive impacts as road maintenance has been improved. In the ongoing privatization of public operational entities, the Government has already managed to transfer various entities to the private sector in the form of PPP.