THE government has allocated 16bn/- in the 2021/22 financial year for purchasing digital printing machine for the Tanzania Standard Newspapers (TSN).
The move would enable the government-owned media house, which publishes the Daily News, Sunday News, HabaliLeo and SpotiLeo, to improve productivity and become more competitive in the media industry.
The revelations have been made when the Ministry of Information, Culture, Sports and Arts tabled the 2021/22 budget estimates of 54.7bn/- in the ongoing Parliament meetings.
Minister for the portfolio, Innocent Bashungwa, said the ministry will make close follow to ensure the Ministry of Finance release the amount for purchasing of the state-of-the-art printing equipment.
Mr Bashungwa said the printing machine will make the TSN improve the quality of the products thus win consumers, noting that the current printing unit is outdated and in bad shape.
“The process to get 16bn/- for the purchase of the digital printing machine is going on between my ministry and the ministry of finance and the procurement of the machine is scheduled for 2021/22 fiscal year.
The project will be a major source of revenue for TSN because it will be printing several types of documents from within and outside the country” said the Minister
He said the TSN will keep on extending the scope of business and operations of its services by being innovative and come up with projects and programmes that will be sources of new revenues.
Mr Bashungwa told the parliament that TSN will also set up a multimedia studio during the next financial year in order to improve its social media platforms.
This will go parallel with purchase of state of art digital media equipment and employ staff with the needed qualifications to meet the demands.
