A Local Investment Company, VIP Engineering and Marketing Limited, has expanded its scope of business through engagement of social activities and projects, notably health, transportation and port developments.
Our Staff Writer Mohamed Mambo interviewed Dr. Camilo Schutte, an international lawyer and advocate, who is representing the company in various cases outside Tanzania, on a number of issues, including VIP’s struggle for justice seeking to serve the purpose of edifying the next generations of Tanzanians. He reports...........
Question: Dr Camilo Schutte, you have for quite some time been involved in a working relationship with a Tanzanian firm, VIP Engineering and Marketing Limited (VIP). What is the scope of your ties with VIP from the operational and professional point of view?
Answer: I am an advocate in Amsterdam and I specialise in international commercial and corporate law. As such, I have been advising and representing VIP in its international disputes and I have assisted VIP in the legal aspects of its business activities.
Question: VIP Company, as you know, is presently engaged in a number of industrial and other local social infrastructural projects, including health, transportation, port development and manufacturing of beverages. How do you visualize the future prosperity of this firm in the face of its massive and ambitious projects?
Answer: VIP Company was struck by a number of very serious setbacks in the early years 2000. Those setbacks can be summarised as a number of devastating experiences with foreign business partners who had abused the trust the Company had deposited in them. As a consequence, VIP Company had to stop its operational activities in 2002, when it filed for the winding up of Independent Power Tanzania Ltd (IPTL).
The years thereafter until 2014, the Company’s business activities have been dormant as the company was awaiting the outcome of several legal proceedings.
Since 2014, VIP Company is seeing the light at the end of the dark tunnel: partial settlements have been reached and VIP has recovered at least some of its losses, albeit a small part for now.
This has allowed the Company to start thinking about its new projects. Indeed, as you say, VIP Company is interested in a wide range of potential investment areas. There is so much still to do in Tanzania! The Company will pick out the most urgent issues. This choice will not be based on a single criterion of profitability, but primarily on criteria of public need.
The Government of Tanzania lacks the resources to cover all fundamental and basic needs of the people of Tanzania. Private initiative is necessary to boost general prosperity, including those services for the public.
VIP Company will therefore concentrate on projects that are both economically viable and will have a direct positive impact on issues of public interest. I have no doubt that the Company will have a prosperous future, not at the cost of Tanzania but as part of and thanks to the increasing prosperity of Tanzania to which VIP will continue to contribute.
Question: The firm has undertaken to boost health services in the country, especially in the treatment of cancer, a health malady that is threatening the good health standards in the country like it is doing in other parts of the world. Do you have any advice you would like to share with us to ensure the mega health project takes off in the manner it has been intended?
Answer: As I am neither a businessman nor a physician, my advice is necessarily limited of nature for this project. In general terms, it seems that investing in cancer treatment in Tanzania is a very wise thing to do. Why will this be a success? First, because the necessary facilities and knowledge to treat cancer is virtually non-existent in Tanzania.
Second, because the number of people suffering from cancer is increasing. Thirdly, because cancer is a disease that can be combated effectively, provided that its diagnosis is done in the early phases of the disease. Discovering cancer at an early stage is both the easiest and the most productive way to fight cancer.
My advice to VIP Company would be primarily: don’t do what other local companies are willing to do, but concentrate on what others consider too risky or are not able to do. Once those risks have been taken, others will follow and a basis can be developed that will guarantee a sustainable growth of the health sector. In sum, my advice is to be a motor of change, not a follower or a free rider.
Question: Being a law expert, you will agree that VIP Engineering has been faced with an array of legal suits and other matters needing urgent and professional legal expertise to solve or straighten up in the face of fierce local and international competition. Do you see this as a major threat in the very existence and future of this company?
Answer: It is difficult for me to answer this question and I will have to restrict myself to what my client VIP has been saying in public. There is no doubt that the disputes have been prejudicial for VIP.
Nobody goes to court because he likes to go to court, but because he sees no other way out to safeguard his fundamental rights. Legal proceedings always entail risks, because the outcome is never certain until the final judgment has been pronounced and the way may take a long time. So, yes, the disputes are a threat. Having said this, I should add that the risks VIP is facing are limited. Yes, there are risks, but no, I don’t see that they are a “major threat”.
Question: What future do you see for VIP Company in the economic and social development of Tanzania in the present economic and current political ‘currents’ in the country? Any challenges posed in all the above?
Answer: I am very optimistic about economic and social development of Tanzania. I have been visiting Tanzania, and mainly Dar es Salaam, for over six years now and I am always surprised to see how Dar es Salaam changes every time I come. I see high rising new buildings, endless trading in the streets, a healthy climate of religious tolerance.
I know Tanzanians are very critical about themselves and even more about their fellow Tanzanians. This creates a climate of mistrust, which is never good for development. This mistrust can also be abused by external forces that have an interest in dividing to rule. Personally I think this is the biggest challenge for Tanzania and for VIP: to increase the internal co-operation and not to be naive about what seems to be foreign willingness and aid, but in fact may be very well a wolf in a sheep’s clothing.
Tanzanians should remember that there is no such thing as getting something for free. If businesses or foreign states offer you something for free, it is because you are the product. Yet, again, I am optimistic. I am very hopeful that newly elected President John Magufuli will act in accordance with what he promised: make Tanzanians work.
Tanzanians have a lot to be proud of, not only in terms of the natural resources our Maker bestowed on Tanzania, which is only His merit, but also in cultural terms: Tanzania is, in all its diversity, one nation, whose citizens have a strong spirit of freedom and a well developed sense of social justice. It is not always easy to find the right balance between unity and individual freedom, which are both necessary to build a strong community.
But we should not forget that where strong political debate takes place, it is not a sign of political disease but the symptom of a democratic constitution in action. As to VIP Company, the future I see for it in the economic and social development of Tanzania is twofold: first, VIP Company should be the motor of change I spoke about before.
Second, VIP Company should share its vast experiences with young Tanzanian entrepreneurs and public officials, in doing business in an international environment and public private partnerships. I truly hope that the history of VIP’s struggle for justice will serve the purpose of edifying the next generations of Tanzanians.
/Daily News.
No comments :
Post a Comment