AfricaPress-Tanzania: DONOR countries and development partners have continued to fulfill their pledges to support Tanzania’s budget at an impressive rate, the government said yesterday.
The Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango assured the Parliament yesterday that the development partners have been supporting the government in accordance with the signed agreements.
“We have been receiving aids and soft loans from donor countries and development partners without problems and as agreed,” he stressed.
The minister was responding to queries from lawmakers during the questions and answers session, held electronically in adherence to anti-Coronavirus measures adopted by the House.
The office of the Speaker announced the new measures a day prior to the kick-off of the three months long House as the nation intensifies efforts to curb the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.
Momba MP, Mr David Silinde (Chadema) sought to know reasons behind the delay and failure of donors and development partners to fulfill their pledges to support the country’s development budget.
The slegislator claimed that there was evidence that the amount of money from development partners and donors has been decreasing in the past three years.
He suggested further that the development partners have occasionally failed to deposit the funds for financing various development projects undertaken by the government.
However, the Finance Minister, Dr Mpango refuted the claims, saying it was not true that development partners and donors were not injecting funds into the government’s coffers as per their agreements.
He revealed that so far, the development partners have managed to fulfill their promises by 77 per cent.
Giving the breakdown, Dr Mpango stated that in 2 0 16 / 17 the development partners provided 2.5 trl/- out of the pledged 3.6 trl/-, an equivalent to 69 per cent.
In the following fiscal year, 2 0 17 / 18 , the government received 3.4trl/- which was 84 per cent of the targeted amount, that is 3 .9trl/-.
Meanwhile in 2 0 18 / 19 financial year, the government received 2 .0 8 trl/- which was 78 per cent of the targeted 2 .6 trl/- .
According to Dr Mpango, from July 20 19 to February, this year, the government has received aids and soft loans, worth 1.6trl/-, from donors and development partners. He said the received fund is equivalent to 90 per cent of the estimated amount.
“It is wrong to say the development partners are not fulfilling their pledges, the MP is not telling the truth,” he said.
Increased domestic revenues and financial discipline in the use of public funds has helped Tanzania cut down donor dependency by around 71 per cent in recent years.
Resolved to get rid of decades- long donor dependency in financing its development budget, President John Magufuli’s government has implemented a number of tax and revenue measures since its first budget in the 20 16 / 17 fiscal year.
The notable cut down of donor dependency on budget financing is on the General B udget Support (GB S) that is set to go down to only 138 .3 2 bn/- in the 2 0 2 0 / 2 1 from 483 bn/- in 2 0 16 / 17 fiscal year.
Also, over the 20 16 / 17 and 20 2 0 / 2 0 2 1 fiscal period, external grants and concessional loans have gone down from 3.6 tri/- to the latest 2 .8 7 tri/- unveiled in the budget frame for the next financial year.
