AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government has recently instructed that all Councils in the country be registered with the government accounting system, and this is an important step towards sealing loopholes in the misuse of public funds.
The directive came in the wake of major weaknesses in local authorities, where some face issues of embezzlement, thus deny the government quest to get the value for money in its development projects.
The Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Philip Mpango directed the ministry’s financial information systems management unit to execute the directives with the ultimate goal to ensure discipline in public spending.
With limited resources of public financing, it becomes more vital for councils to uproot the embezzlements of fiscal resources by improving the accounting system.
A few days after assuming the office, President John Magufuli instructed strict public expenditure of the country’s scarce resources and enhancing revenue collection.
This was made possible after developing and strengthening several financial management systems aimed at strengthening domestic revenue collection and ensuring discipline in public spending.
The systems have improved the transparency and accountability in management of public funds and subsequently promote speedy social economic development.
The misuse of public spending is among the vices that have been withholding back the nation from moving out of abject poverty.
Other measures instituted by the government to control spending included abolishing unnecessary foreign trips, workshops and bringing sanity in public services by removing ghost workers and those with fake academic credentials from its payroll.
The government bold measures to plug in revenue leakages through use of system management have in the last five years led to the increase in revenue collection and in turn facilitated hiking of development budget to 40 per cent from 26 per cent.
Last year, the government accounting system (MUSE) was launched to manage spending from budget expenditure outside the relevant budget.
Through the system, every council or institution will be monitored, whenever they take money for various purposes in their areas.
The financial management system controls the budget and cash flows of the Councils, while enforcing the structure to safeguard the rule of law consistently without interpolation.
Dr Mpango’s directives to institute a working system in the councils are aimed at generating value for money and ensure best public services delivery to the people.
Therefore, enrolling all councils with the government accounting system will guarantee more efficient public services delivery in terms of better education, better health services, better transport infrastructures and better fiscal incentives to allow swift operation of economic activities.
