Tanzania’s government is reviewing its Public-Private Partnership (PPP) legislation, three years after amendments intended to simplify project preparation and attract investors, as delays in negotiations, contract approvals and project execution continue to undermine delivery.
Finance Minister Khamis Mussa Omar told Parliament on November 3, 2026, that the government was reviewing the Public-Private Partnership Act, Cap. 103, to address bottlenecks in project preparation and implementation, including delays in concluding agreements between public institutions and private investors. The review comes as Tanzania seeks to expand private-sector participation in financing its development agenda.
Under the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (2026/27–2030/31), Tanzania estimates infrastructure investment requirements of TZS477 trillion, with approximately 70% (TZS334 trillion) expected from private capital. In the current 2026/27 financial year, the government has identified 10 PPP projects worth TZS8.6 trillion (approximately $3.2 billion) at different stages of implementation.
They include Dar es Salaam’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, port operations, commercial property development and the rehabilitation and operation of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) railway.
However, Tanzania’s PPP challenges extend beyond the time taken to approve contracts. They are rooted in years of institutional weaknesses, inadequate project preparation and difficulties allocating risks between public authorities and private investors.
The country enacted its first PPP Act in 2010, establishing separate coordination and finance units to evaluate proposed projects. These were merged into a single PPP Centre in 2014, before responsibility for the programme shifted to the Ministry of Finance in 2018. The centre only became operational in January 2024, illustrating the institutional delays that have accompanied the development of the framework.
The 2023 amendments sought to make the environment more attractive to investors. They streamlined project preparation procedures, eased certain procurement requirements, introduced mandatory special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) for project implementation, expanded access to tax incentives and provided for international arbitration in qualifying disputes. Yet legal reforms have not automatically resolved weaknesses in implementation.
A March 2026 report by Tanzania’s Controller and Auditor General (CAG) illustrates the problem through its findings on the Dar Rapid Transit Agency (DART).
Auditors found that DART signed four PPP-related contracts during the 2024/25 financial year before the respective service providers had established and registered the legally required SPVs. In one case, the company was registered five months after the contract was signed, while other providers had not established their SPVs by November 2025.
The audit also questioned the transfer of a BRT Phase II service agreement from Metro Link City Company Limited to Dar Metro Limited. Although the original agreement covered the supply, operation and maintenance of 334 buses, auditors found no documented evidence of the mandatory prior approvals from the PPP Steering Committee and Finance Ministry for the contractual transfer. They also found no evidence of fresh technical and financial due diligence on the replacement entity.
The operational consequences were equally concerning. Three BRT service providers had been scheduled to deliver 687 buses between June and October 2025. By November 28, 2025, none had been delivered. The outstanding fleet comprised 166 buses from Y.K City Link Limited, 344 from Metro Link Limited and 177 from Trans Dar Limited. The auditor warned of potential service disruptions and weaknesses in contract monitoring and enforcement.
Tanzania has established legal safeguards, but compliance, institutional capacity and contract supervision remain critical weaknesses. Its own PPP implementation strategy identifies inadequate feasibility studies, insufficient negotiation capacity, poor risk allocation and limited resources for project preparation as obstacles to successful partnerships. In October 2025, the PPP Centre also partnered with governance organisation WAJIBU to investigate the causes of project implementation delays.
Tanzania’s PPP Centre reported that two projects reached financial close in 2024, securing $187 million in private investment. The challenge now is to replicate that progress across a much larger pipeline.