East African Business Week (Kampala)
Dar es Salaam — The 2012/13 budget statements presented to Parliament on June 14 has been received with mixed feelings as many of the citizens, religious leaders as well as political leaders say it does not address the concerns of the people.
(Prof. Lipumba the chairman of Civic United Front (CUF)on a conference recently)
The current Tsh15 trillion ($ 9.48 billion) budget estimates has set the priorities on power generation with the amount totaling to Tsh500 m ($ 317,058) that aimed at stabilizing the current power turmoil and bring it to an end while another priority being transport and communication with an allocation of Tsh 1.4 trillion ($ 887.76 m).
This however has sent a very different signal from observers and economists saying the current budget aims only to let the haves receive many while the have-nots' continue to rue in hardships.
The renowned economist, who is also the lecture at the University of Dar es Salaam and the Chairman of Civic United Front Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba said that the current budget does not intend to help Tanzanians pull out of poverty.
He said the fact that only 30% of the budget was allocated to development expenditure meant that it was not intended to boost the country economic growth.
Prof Lipumba argued that the $2.85b (Tsh4.52 trillion) allocation to the development projects which is about 30% of the total budget expenditure means that the budget did not intend to boost the country's economy.
A section of economists were also of the view that the government would have stressed reducing inflation which is currently staggering 18.5% compared to 5% in 2005.
They say part of the problem is that the government has not come up with better ways of finding the new sources of revenue and has stuck on the same usual sources of cigarettes and beverages claiming a country cannot get out of poverty by relying on the same revenues year in, year out.
One Dar es Salaam residents, Mr Lazzaro Mussa, who trades in vehicles said that the government should have addressed the high food products in the country to stabilize citizens' incomes.
"We expected this budget at least to solve the problem of food by finding the ways on how the cost of food production can be reduced, because no matter how the salaries rise, if the local citizen fails to have enough food on the table, the hardships can never end.
According to him the high food prices make life very hard. He added, it was important that 2012/13 financial year focused on easing inflation.
"How can the government say the current budget is expecting to employ more than 70,000 people if the individual citizen fails to put the food on the table each day that passes while many government projects remain unfinished," Mussa wondered.
He said many school buildings remain incomplete and lack both teachers' housing and libraries, there was also lack of drugs in most health centers. "Do we really have to believe that these three priorities of energy, transport, and water for the current financial years' budget will be implemented when the government failed to implement all last years priorities?" he wondered.
Some academicians said the budget was urban focused and unless the government focused on allocating enough funds for development projects in the rural areas poverty would reign. Prof. Humphrey Moshi of the University of Dar es Salaam advised the government to stop being depending on donors.
Speaking at the post budget policy forum, many experts said the government needed to cut its expenditure if it was to match the current domestic revenues while expanding its tax base.
They argued that the government has only been targeting a few taxpayers forgetting that more revenues can also be sourced from the natural resources the country has.
The current Tsh15 trillion ($ 9.48 billion) budget estimates has set the priorities on power generation with the amount totaling to Tsh500 m ($ 317,058) that aimed at stabilizing the current power turmoil and bring it to an end while another priority being transport and communication with an allocation of Tsh 1.4 trillion ($ 887.76 m).
This however has sent a very different signal from observers and economists saying the current budget aims only to let the haves receive many while the have-nots' continue to rue in hardships.
The renowned economist, who is also the lecture at the University of Dar es Salaam and the Chairman of Civic United Front Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba said that the current budget does not intend to help Tanzanians pull out of poverty.
He said the fact that only 30% of the budget was allocated to development expenditure meant that it was not intended to boost the country economic growth.
Prof Lipumba argued that the $2.85b (Tsh4.52 trillion) allocation to the development projects which is about 30% of the total budget expenditure means that the budget did not intend to boost the country's economy.
A section of economists were also of the view that the government would have stressed reducing inflation which is currently staggering 18.5% compared to 5% in 2005.
They say part of the problem is that the government has not come up with better ways of finding the new sources of revenue and has stuck on the same usual sources of cigarettes and beverages claiming a country cannot get out of poverty by relying on the same revenues year in, year out.
One Dar es Salaam residents, Mr Lazzaro Mussa, who trades in vehicles said that the government should have addressed the high food products in the country to stabilize citizens' incomes.
"We expected this budget at least to solve the problem of food by finding the ways on how the cost of food production can be reduced, because no matter how the salaries rise, if the local citizen fails to have enough food on the table, the hardships can never end.
According to him the high food prices make life very hard. He added, it was important that 2012/13 financial year focused on easing inflation.
"How can the government say the current budget is expecting to employ more than 70,000 people if the individual citizen fails to put the food on the table each day that passes while many government projects remain unfinished," Mussa wondered.
He said many school buildings remain incomplete and lack both teachers' housing and libraries, there was also lack of drugs in most health centers. "Do we really have to believe that these three priorities of energy, transport, and water for the current financial years' budget will be implemented when the government failed to implement all last years priorities?" he wondered.
Some academicians said the budget was urban focused and unless the government focused on allocating enough funds for development projects in the rural areas poverty would reign. Prof. Humphrey Moshi of the University of Dar es Salaam advised the government to stop being depending on donors.
Speaking at the post budget policy forum, many experts said the government needed to cut its expenditure if it was to match the current domestic revenues while expanding its tax base.
They argued that the government has only been targeting a few taxpayers forgetting that more revenues can also be sourced from the natural resources the country has.
No comments:
Post a Comment