FINANCE and Planning Minister Philip Mpango tabled in the National Assembly yesterday budget estimates for his ministry, asking the House to approve a total of 8.716 trillion/- for the fiscal year 2016/2017, a large chunk of which will be used to service the national debt.
Available data indicate that the
national debt, comprising domestic and foreign loans, has swelled to
42tri/- as of January, this year. The funds were used to finance
implementation of development projects in various sectors of the
economy.
He explained in the House here that a
total of 8tri/- will be used to settle the national debt while
791.99bn/- and 45.45bn/- will be channelled to development projects and
wage bill, respectively.
A former World Bank senior economist, Dr
Mpango said that in the coming financial year, the government has also
allocated 1.14tri/- to settle obligations it owes social security funds
as an employer.
During the same period, the ministry
expects to collect 449.699bn/- from various sources including sell of
licences, tender documents, rent charges, dividends and contributions
from public organisations.
The budget estimates covers the Ministry
and departments falling under it namely the Treasury, the National Debt
Department, the Accountant General, the Office of the Treasury
Registrar and the Joint Financial Commission.
Others include the Financial
Intelligence Unit (FIU), the National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT)
and the Planning Commission, to which Dr Mpango was executive director
before he was appointed by President John Magufuli as Acting
Commissioner General of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and
eventually Minister for Finance and Planning.
In a related development, Dr Mpango
asked the House to approve 230.693bn/- for recurrent and development
votes for the Office of the Parliament and the Judiciary Fund.
This is in accordance with amendments on
Chapter 237,Section 29 (3) of the Parliament Administration Act;
Chapter 115 through the Budget Act of 2015, which empowers the Minister
responsible for Finance to request funds for the vote.
The same applies to revisions of
Sub-section 59 (3) of the Judiciary Administration Act through the
Budget Act of 2015, empowering the Finance Minister to budget and ask
for funds for management of the judiciary in the country.
Before the amendments last year, fund
allocation for the Parliament was covered through the Prime Minister’s
Office whilst that of the Judiciary was catered for in the Ministry of
Justice and Constitutional Affairs.
“My ministry thus asks the House to
approve 131.627bn/- for the Judiciary Fund of which 48.297bn/- and
36.567bn/- will be used for salaries and other charges, respectively,
while development projects have been allocated 46.761bn/-, ‘’ he
explained.
The Office of the Parliament on the
other hand has been allocated a total of 99.066bn/- in which 92.066bn/-
is for other charges, including salaries and recurrent expenditures,
while development projects have been allocated 7bn/-.
On the other hand, the Vice-Chairman of
the Parliamentary Budget Committee, Mr Josephat Kandege (Kalambo-CCM),
stressed on the need to properly examine the debts before payments are
made.
“The committee is concerned as well that
longstanding debts owed to employees, contractors and other suppliers
have been swelling each year and thus giving a burden to public
institutions which are made to pay loans arising from previous fiscal
years,” he stated.
Deputy Shadow Finance and Planning
Minister David Silinde (Momba - Chadema), much as he refused to read his
budget, requested Deputy Speaker, Dr Tulia Ackson, to record the
written speech in the Hansard.
Among other issues, Mr Silinde expressed
concern in his speech that the national debt was increasing at an
alarming, urging the government to explain sustainability of the
liability compared to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
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