Tanzanian President John Magufuli has ordered all unprofitable public firms that have for years failed to remit dividends to the government to be shut down.

"The government has invested more than 21.5 billion U.S. dollars in various public firms but it has been receiving very little amount in return. All the 90 public institutions should pay dividends annually and they should be shut down if they fail to do so,” said Magufuli.

Speaking in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam shortly before he received 319 million U.S. dollars dividends from 43 public firms, Magufuli said most of the public firms were not performing well due to factors including poor management and corruption.

Magufuli warned public firms over foul play in declaring assets, profits, management fees and operational costs.

Treasury Registrar Athumani Mbuttuka gave investors of unprofitable firms until end of August to revive the companies and complete full due payments as per signed contracts. "We are going to take back all the poor performing firms. Three investors have so far surrendered their projects over failure to develop them,” said Mbuttuka.

He said that only 20 out of the recently reviewed 85 privatised public companies and industries were performing well.He said 51 of them were not operational while 14 were lagging behind. He said there were other 158 public institutions that solely depend on government subsidy.

By Xinhua