AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government has assured the nation that it will in the next Financial Year continue implementing all flagship projects in order to attain the country’s ambitious middle income economy by 2025.
Tabling the 2020/ 2021 National Budget in the august House, Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango, said the government will continue to finance the implementation of various strategic projects including the ongoing construction of the central railway line to Standard Gauge.
Others according to him are the construction of Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project (2,115 MW), strengthening Air Tanzania Company Ltd, facilitating construction of Crude Oil Pipeline Project from Hoima (Uganda) to Tanga (Tanzania).
The Finance Minister noted further that the government would continue with the construction and rehabilitation of railways, roads, bridges, airports, ports, ships in major lakes and ferries, and strengthening of electricity and gas production, transmission and distribution infrastructure including expediting rural electrification.
Out of the 34.88tri/- budget which the government plans to spend in the next fiscal year, the minister said, about12.78tri/- would be spent for development expenditure, equivalent to 37 per cent of the total budget.
In the implementation of flagship projects, Dr Mpango said out of that amount, 2.10tri/- has been allocated for Standard Gauge Railway project, 1.60tri/-for Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project at Rufiji River, 823.7bn/- for Railway, Water and REA Funds, 490bn/- for Higher Education Students’ Loans and 298.1bn/- for Fee Free Basic Education.
“The budget for 2020/21 is the fifth and the last in the implementation of the National Five- Year Development Plan 2016/17 – 2020/21. Implementation of this budget focuses on priority areas which stimulate economic transformation and human development,” said Dr Mpango.
Earlier, the Finance Minister told the House that since President John Magufuli took over in 2015 the government had recorded several achievements in the implementation of key development projects including building of a new ship with the capacity of 1,200 passengers and 400 tonnes of cargo in Lake Victoria and floating dock, rehabilitation of MV Victoria and MV Butiama whereby a total of 111.7bn/- was spent from 2015/16 to April 2020.
“Likewise, the government has completed building of one new ship with a carrying capacity of 200 passengers and 200 tonnes of cargo at Lake Nyasa, building of MV Kigamboni, MV Utete, Kigongo – Busisi, MV Sengerema, and Nyamisati – Mafia ferries and rehabilitation of MT Sangara in Lake Tanganyika,” said Dr Mpango.
Presenting the economic survey 2019 report and the National Development Plan 2020/21 in the august House, Dr Mpango said out of 12.9tri/- allocated for the plan, 10.16tri/- will be sourced domestically while another 2.74tri/- are foreign funds.
According to the Finance Minister, in an effort to ensure domestic and external revenue projections are realised, the government will continue to improve business and investment environment in order to promote small and medium sized enterprises, promote voluntary tax compliance and widen the tax base.
Others, he said, are fast tracking and scaling- up installation and usage of Government Electronic Payment Gateway (GEPG), emphasize adoption and appropriate application of ICT, getting rid of nuisance levies and fees as well as to strengthen Monitoring and Evaluation systems across parastatals and government institutions.
