The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) aims to stimulate the creation of approximately three million job opportunities by 2050 through public procurement contracts reserved for youth, women, the elderly and persons with disabilities.

Speaking to journalists in Dodoma on August 20, 2026, PPRA Director General Mr Dennis Simba said the Public Procurement Act, 2023 requires public institutions to allocate 30 per cent of their procurement budgets to these special groups. To date, he said, the groups have secured contracts worth more than TZS 56 billion through the National e-Procurement System of Tanzania (NeST).

“In line with the Tanzania Development Vision 2050, PPRA’s target is to have approximately 300,000 groups ready to bid for public procurement opportunities. This initiative forms part of the Government’s efforts to create jobs for Tanzanians who may not have the capacity to establish companies, but can organise themselves into groups and execute public contracts,” Mr Simba said.

He explained that the target could generate at least three million job opportunities if each group has an average of five to 20 members. He added that a special group may secure a single contract worth up to TZS 500 million, while some groups have already won individual contracts valued at up to TZS 300 million through NeST.

“So far, 27,946 special groups have registered on NeST. These comprise 13,317 youth groups, 13,400 women’s groups, 643 groups of elderly persons and 586 groups of persons with disabilities,” he said.

Mr Simba further said that PPRA has introduced a mobile application known as ‘NeST Tenderer’ to broaden Tanzanians’ participation in public procurement and make tender opportunities easier to access. Through the application, tenderers can register, submit bids and track the progress of procurement proceedings from wherever they are.

He said NeST has been integrated with more than 30 other systems to shorten procurement processing times and minimise the risk of document forgery. To date, the system has facilitated 397,395 procurement proceedings with a combined value of TZS 40.4 trillion.

According to Mr Simba, NeST has contributed to an increase in the public procurement compliance rate from 65 per cent in the 2023/24 financial year to 76 per cent in 2024/25 and 79 per cent in 2025/26. The system has also eliminated the need to print more than 288.57 million pages of tender documents, resulting in estimated savings of TZS 27.64 billion.

He urged Tanzanians to take advantage of these opportunities, noting that the Public Procurement Act reserves contracts valued at up to TZS 50 billion exclusively for local tenderers. The law also provides a preference margin of up to 10 per cent for local tenderers and up to 15 per cent for goods manufactured in Tanzania in international competitive tenders.

“NeST creates opportunities for Tanzanians at every level of the economy. Procurement opportunities are available even within local government authorities and can be undertaken by artisans and other skilled workers. That is just one example,” Mr Simba said.

In recognition of its effectiveness, NeST was recently named among the world’s top 20 e-government systems. The recognition was presented at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2026 ceremony held in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 8, 2026.