THE Parliamentary Committee on Administration and Local Government Affairs has urged the government to speed up allocation of funds to Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF)-financed projects.
The Committee chairman, Bukoba Rural
legislator (CCM) Mr Jason Rweikiza, made the call in Dar es Salaam
yesterday during a familiarization tour at TASAF. He said the government
had pledged to release US dollars100m annually to TASAF to enable most
vulnerable households acquire basic needs but to date the promise has
not been fulfilled.
“Currently, funds being used by TASAF
are from development partners. As Members of Parliament, we’ll table
this issue in the meeting,” said Mr Rweikiza.
Another MP, Mr George Lubeleje of
Mpwapwa (CCM), proposed a bill be tabled in Parliament to make TASAF
recognized as a government institution.
“This will enable TASAF receive funding
not only from the government but also other development stakeholders,”
he noted. Special Seats MP Angelina Malembeka of North Unguja cautioned
politicians not to disrupt the goals of TASAF projects.
She advised TASAF to devise a mechanism
of enrolling the beneficiaries in the Community Health Fund to overcome
challenges of medical treatment whenever recipients fall sick.
TASAF Executive Director Mr Ladislaus
Mwamanga noted that the fund is going to work on the issues of inclusion
and exclusion especially those households that were not fit to be in
the programme and yet were registered.
“We are going to devise a mechanism to
enable tracking of the beneficiaries and strike out those unfit,” he
said. He said 1,704 projects were implemented during TASAF I leading to
infrastructure improvement of 204 village roads, 41 fish ponds, 29
forests reserves, 16 markets and three bus stands, out of which 305 job
opportunities were created.
“About 40 municipal councils in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar were accessed and obtained the social services.
TASAF II reached 12,347 projects
amounting to 430bn/- resulting to projects such as water,
infrastructure, livestock keeping, social work and temporary
employments, Mr Mwamanga said.
Out of 1.3 million identified poor
households in TASAF III, a total of 1.1 million have been registered
with a population of five million in 9,960 villages in the country.
“Nutrition issues have been improved
year to year by 49.7 per cent of stunted children since the programme
launch,” Mr Mwamanga told the parliamentary committee.
Minister of State in the President’s
Office (Good Governance and Public Service Management), Ms Angella
Kairuki pledged to work on all the challenges being pointed out as well
as identifying the beneficiaries so that funds would be channelled to
proper hands.
There have been complaints that some top officials tasked with managing these funds misuse them.
The minister promised to work on those
allegations and take legal and disciplinary measures against the
culprits. “We are going to work on these claims and eventually take
legal action against the criminals should we establish that there was
mismanagement of such funds,” she noted.
Ms Kairuki also promised to work on the improvement of various systems, particularly the issue of claims.
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