Tanzania: 2.75bn/-Paid in Dividend After President's Order

By Nelly Mtema in Dodoma

FOUR government institutions have handed over a total of 2.75bn/-as dividend to the Minister of Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango, following President John Magufuli's call to 187 institutions that

failed to present their dividends to the government last week.

The Head of State gave 60 days to 187 institutions to deposit the dividend or their leaders and board of directors face an axe.

The institutions that handed over the dividends are Self Microfinance (200m/-), Tanzania Postal Corporation (350m/-), Tanzania Railways Corporation (1bn/-) and the Tanzania Investment Centre (1.2bn/-) The Minister maintained that he will implement the President's order after the given ultimatum of 60 days.

"I will make sure the orders are implemented after 60 days, no public institution will be spared on this," he said.

On his part, Treasury Registrar, Athumani Mbuttuka said all public entities have been served with letters to abide to the President's order immediately.

During the event to receive dividends on Sunday, President Magufuli received dividend and surplus contribution from 79 government institutions, authorities and agencies worth over 1.05trn/-, He said the government had invested at least 59.6trn/-to a total of 266 institutions.

"Unfortunately only 79 institutions are returning the favour," he said. Adding: "The time to plead with each other is over and we cannot tolerate seeing the government continuing to lose."

He accused the non-performing firms of embezzlement of public funds by spending in luxury vehicles, hotels as well as expensive board meetings that had limited their ability to generate profits and pay dividend.

No matter the sum of shares, President Magufuli wants to see the government benefiting from its decadeslong investment. The office of the treasury registrar released a list of 52 public institutions whose contribution was above 300m/.

Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) emerged a leading payer after submitting a cheque of 169bn/- in the dividend. Some other institutions that paid-off their share with their contribution includes TCRA (85.855bn/-), TANESCO (1.400bn/-), DAWASA (1.395bn/-), GBT (95bn/- ) TPDC (66.400bn/-), TANAPA (44.438bn/-), NCAA (23.538bn/-) Ewura (7.212bn/-) and TPC (14.502bn/-).

The contributions were for the financial year ending June 30, 2019. During the financial year 2019/20, the government had projected to collect 33.1trn/-in which 59.7 per cent of the expected collection or 19.1trn/-would come from tax sources.

Contribution of government institutions and dividend forms 50 per cent of non-tax revenues. Records remain clear that the contribution has risen to 1.05trn/-this year down from 161.04bn/- in 2014/15 financial year where only 24 institutions were involved.

In 2015/16 there were 25 firms that paid 249.5bn/- , in 2016/17 it jumped to 637bn/- from 38 firms and in 2017/18 the number of institutions reached 40 paying at least 842.13bn/-.

Although the trend of public entities contributing increased with time, both the level of revenue collections remains below the government target.