Army Equipment in Tanzania

Tanzania requires a certificate of conformity before shipment under the verification programme run for the Tanzania Bureau of Standards, and capital goods can be exempted from it. That exemption is less useful in this division than it first appears. Clothing, footwear, gumboots, riot protection, vests and suppression blankets are stores and consumables rather than capital plant, and an importer who assumes the capital-goods route will cover a mixed army equipment container is likely to be corrected at Dar es Salaam. Where one durable item in the order might be treated differently — a dual zone door frame metal detector, for example — that is a question to put to TBS in advance, in writing, and item by item rather than for the consignment as a whole.

Get the exemption question answered before the booking

The cost of being wrong is not the certificate fee, it is the delay. Verification is a pre-shipment activity, so a consignment that turns out to need a certificate after it has sailed cannot be fixed at the destination. Where there is any doubt about the status of a line, certify it. A certificate obtained unnecessarily is a small cost; a container held while one is sought is not.

Two working languages

Trade and tender documents appear in English and in Swahili. English commercial paperwork is accepted, but a buyer may need Swahili versions internally, and a tender may be issued in either. Where a translation is required for the technical description of an item, agree who produces it and who is responsible for its accuracy before the bid goes in, because an error in a translated specification is still an error in the offer.

Dar es Salaam

Container cargo discharges at Dar es Salaam. The port also feeds inland markets, so a buyer consolidating a regional order should separate the Tanzanian lines from anything in transit at the planning stage, since the two follow different customs routes and different documentation.

Procurement and power

Public buying is regulated by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, with electronic procurement through the NeST platform. Mains supply is 230 V at 50 Hz with British-pattern 13 A outlets, which is what flood lighting, cameras and detection equipment should be built and plugged for.

Specifications are given from the recorded attributes for each line: dimensions, material, colour, features, weight, gender for sized garments, wash care and packaging type. No ballistic rating is published for the anti-riot armour, which is listed as stab resistant and shock resistant, so a protection standard in a tender must be put to us as written. We neither stock spares nor carry out repairs; any installation, training or warranty undertaking has to appear in the supply contract.