Parliamentary Committee on Public Investment has advised the government to ensure that biolarvicides produced by the Tanzania Biotech Product Limited (TBPL) get reliable market.
The biolarvicides are biological products whose active ingredients are entomopathological spore forming bacteria used for controlling mosquitoes larval stages.
The TBPL, which is located in Kibaha District, Coast Region, is under the National Development Corporation (NDC).
According to the committee, the factory is experiencing challenges after failure by the government to set aside a budget to purchase the product for local use, mainly fighting Malaria.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Investment and Capital (PIC) Jerry Silaa said this in the House on Wednesday evening when tabling a report on the committee’s operations for the past one year.
He said the government has failed to fulfill conditions of the agreement despite the biolarvicides produced by the plant having vouched for its efficacy.
“The government has violated the contractual requirements between it and the NDC through the Ministry of Health that was signed on March 11, 2015 to facilitate domestic market security of the biolarvicides. Billions of money have been invested in the factory, so leaving it out of the government’s priorities will be useless and a loss of public funds,” he said.
The committee said that failure to implement the agreement has led to a decline in NDC revenues, the funds that would increase the organisation’s ability to fulfill its operations and contribute to the government’s central Fund through mass production and selling of the product.
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“In this view, the parliament wants the government to ensure that the Ministry of Finance and Planning allocates enough funds to enable the Ministry of Industries and Trade and Investment to conduct a ‘technical study’ on the best use of the biolarvicides and work on procedures to get certification from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The Ministry of Finance and Planning should allocate a special budget (ring fenced) which will be used to purchase the biolarvicides so as to fight malaria larvae. This will enable the factory to secure a reliable domestic market, which includes facilitating it to repay the loan used,” he explained.
The chairman said while the Kibaha produced Biolarvicide is helping other countries, Tanzania is still lagging behind in using it as reports have shown that a number of African countries are using the formula to eliminate malaria.
The committee also wants the Health ministry to set aside a budget from its own sources to purchase the formula which includes resuming its contract with NDC.
“The government should also ensure that it supervises all the district councils to set aside budgets so as to also purchase the formula and implement anti-malaria campaigns in their areas,” he added.
