THE government is finalising verification of debts amounting to at least 900bn/- it owes its institutions. It will thereafter start paying them, according to Treasury Registrar, Mr Lawrence Mafuru.
Mr Mafuru told the Parliamentary Public
Accounts Committee (PAC) here yesterday that the Treasury’s Chief
Internal Auditor would complete the verification exercise by the end of
this month.
“We had agreed that during the first
quarter of this financial year, we will be verifying the debts before
starting to pay them,” he said.
He made the remarks after the committee
had been told that the Government owes the National Housing Corporation
(NHC) 8.5bn/-, the accumulated debts from the houses that the government
rented. The state-owned real estate company also noted that the private
sector owes it over 5bn/-.
Members of the committee wanted to know when the government would settle the debt with the NHC.
The Director General of the NHC, Mr
Nehemiah Mchechu, however, assured the committee that they had
successful talks with the Ministry of Finance and the Treasury registrar
was helpful on facilitating the settlement of the debt the government
owes the company.
Acting chairman of the committee, Mr
Omari Kigua, directed the state-owned real estate company to ensure that
it takes ideal measures in collecting revenues from debts.
Meanwhile, Mr Kigua, who is Kilindi MP,
directed that the NHC should involve other government institutions
responsible for setting up social infrastructures when conducting
feasibility studies in areas where they plan to build houses for sale.
He said this would help in engaging those institutions to bring the required infrastructures to the respective areas.
This came after Mr Mchechu pointed out
that lack of social infrastructures such as water and electricity was
one of the reasons led to the selling of the houses on unaffordable
prices to low income earners because the NHC is forced to incur costs of
putting up such infrastructures
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