Tanzania in hard times - Mkuya

 

Finance Minister Saada Mkuya revealed in Dodoma this week that such an action has adversely affected the government funding of various projects due to the weakness of the country’s revenue sources.

She said the country needs to ensure that it strengthens its revenue sources and allow proper use of its insufficient resources being collected.

 

In this fiscal year, the government is expected to receive grants and concessional loans from development partners amounting to Sh2,942billion out of which Sh922billion were grants and loans for the GBS, while Sh274.1billion were for the basket funds and Sh1,745billion for development projects.

 

According to her, the current scenario does not differ much with what was experienced in the 2013/2014 financial year when the donors delayed in disbursing funds to all government ministries except the ministry of Works which got Sh604.5bn being 71.84 percent of its Sh845.125bn.

 

She said the Livestock Development and Fisheries ministry was the most hit receiving only Sh3.881billion being 13.4 percent of the total budget of Sh28.973bn followed by the Defence ministry with Sh49.378bn being 20 percent of the budgeted Sh245.58bn.

 

Other ministries on the list include Education and Vocational Training ministry with Sh14.921bn, a 20.5 percent of its Sh72.598bn budget, Gender, Community and Children development ministry obtaining Sh2.923bn, a 24.54 percent of the Sh11.91bn budget.

 

Information, Youth, Culture and Sports received Sh4.327bn out of the Sh12.7bn, Lands, Housing and Human Settlements got Sh47.94 bn being 44.25 percent of the Sh72.17 bn budget.

 

Infrastructure ministry received Sh201.21bn being 47.84 percent of Sh420.52bn while ministry of Energy and Minerals were given only Sh577.7 bn out of the budget Sh1.17 trillion. Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives got Sh40.83 bn being 50 percent of the Sh81.04 bn budget.

 

Debating the 2014/2015 budget in June this year, Finance Deputy, Adam Malima assured the parliament that the government would reduce dependency in the new fiscal year by ensuring that donors contribute less to both GBS and Basket Funds projects.

 

The government had estimated to release Sh282.5bn from domestic sources in the ending fiscal year but only Sh248.8bn had been released as of last month.

 

Mkuya told exclusively the Guardian at the parliament grounds on Wednesday that her office has learnt on how some budgeted funds ended up in the hands of unfaithful officials.

 

“While the government was struggling with how to raise money to meet its budgetary demands, there are some unfaithful officials struggling to swindle the same funds” she said.

 

She added that “Soon after introducing the e-payroll system, we realised that some names were missing in the payroll, a clear indication that some people have been siphoning government money”