THE Tanzanian parliament has extended the tenure of the country’s privatisation agency for four years. The house on Wednesday passed a bill presented by Finance Minister Daniel Yona to enable the Parastatal Sector Reform Commission, the agency entrusted with selling state assets, to complete the divestiture. The commission was created in 1993 with a mandate to privatise close to 400 state-owned companies. But at the end of December 1998 it had privatised only about half of the assets and was given until to December to complete the job. By October, it had divested 263 out of 395 parastatals earmarked for privatisation, which meant 40% of the work remains to be done, according to the minister.