Tanzania

The legal framework analysis aims to provide general knowledge of the national cooperative legislation and of its main characteristics and contents, with particular regard to those aspects of regulation regarding the identity of cooperatives and its distinction from other types of business organisations, notably the for-profit shareholder corporation.

It aims to evaluate whether the national legislation in place supports or hampers the development of cooperatives, and is therefore “cooperative friendly” or not, and the degree to which it may be considered so, also in comparison to the legislation in force in other countries of the ICA region, or at the supranational level.

In addition, the research aims to provide recommendations for eventual renewal of the legal frameworks in place in order to understand what changes in the current legislation would be necessary to improve its degree of “cooperative friendliness”, which is to say, to make the legislation more favourable to cooperatives, also in consideration of their specific identity. This webpage presents a snapshot of the legal framework analysis results for Tanzania.

The following Laws are the main laws governing cooperatives in Tanzania:

• The Cooperative Societies Act, 2013 (Cap 112)
• The Coopertive Societies Regulations, 2015 (GN. No. 272 of 2015)
• The Cooperative Audit and Supervision Act No. 15 of 1982
• Microfinance Act, No. 10 of 2018
• Microfinance (SACCOs) Regulations, 2019 (GN. No. 675 of 2019)
• The Cooperative Societies Act, No 15 of 2018 (Zanzibar)
• Zanzibar Cooperative Societies Regulations, 2019 LN No. 171 of 2019
• Zanzibar SACCOs Regulation, 2019 LN No. 172 of 2019

Cooperative friendliness

From the view of ICA contributing member organizations, both the Mainland and Zanzibar Acts create a legal environment that may not be conducive enough to encourage sustainable cooperative development. Instead of encouraging cooperatives to take lead in the establishment, regulation and promotion of cooperatives,  the laws give respective governments powers to over-regulate cooperatives, but at varying degrees. Some of the 'unfriendly' provisions are listed in the report.

Key recommendations for improvement

The amended legislation should aim at phasing out the external control, particularly by the government while phasing in the cooperative movement.

Conclusions

The cooperative legal frameworks of the United Republic of Tanzania have produced cooperatives which may be referred as pseudo-public or quasi-governmental organizations, not as private sector organizations which should be operated according to the internationally recognized values and principles.

Under these circumstances, a proper reform in the cooperative legal frameworks would involve not only amending the cooperative laws to recognize and translate the said values and principles into action, but also inciting the understanding of the relevant enablers within and outside government circles to change their stance towards cooperative development.

_{The legal frameworks analysis is a tool developed under the ICA-EU Partnership #coops4dev. It is an overview of the national legal frameworks at the time of writing. The views expressed within are not necessarily those of the ICA, nor does a reference to any specific content constitute an explicit endorsement or recommendation by the ICA.}