Dar es Salaam: Donors and development partners have reduced their General Budget Support (GBS) to the government as they announced a commitment of 800bn/- for the 2012/2013 financial year. The support has slightly been scaled down compared to the 1.1tr/- pledged for the 2009/2010 fiscal year, 822bn/- for the 2010/2011 financial year and 840bn/- committed to budget support for the current financial year.
The Head of the European Delegation in the country, Mr Filiberto Criani Sebregondi, said during the just ended Annual National Policy Dialogue in Dar es Salaam at the weekend that levels of the GBS financing will remain stable despite the unpredictable trend. He attributed the decline in the support to the ongoing global financial crisis that has seriously affected many European countries and consequently affecting Africa.
Mr Sebregondi called on African governments, including Tanzania, not only to review their expenditures and but also the countries' investment priorities. "Today's global financial outlook remains bleak and for that reason aid instruments such as GBS remain exposed to criticism and continuing with the status quo will not be healthy," he said.
He also called on parliament, civil society organizations, the media and the general public to keep on scrutinizing government expenditure priorities so that public funds are spent wisely and budgets are result oriented.
Mr Sebregondi gave assurances that development partners shall remain committed to keep honouring GBS obligations by providing finances predictably. He commended the government for a fruitful dialogue and for increasingly striving to rely on own revenues.
The head of EU delegation, however, was quick to caution the government to seek a lasting solution to the perennial energy crisis which is vital for harnessing a vibrant private sector and the development agenda in general.
The Dialogue came up with a long list of deliberations, drawing particular attention of stakeholders to the envisaged five years development plan which needs about 43tr/- to be effectively implemented.
"The First Five Year Development Plan (FYDP 2011/12 - 2015/16) is the first of three such plans intended to deliver the goals of the Tanzania Development Vision 2015, and it aims to unleash Tanzania's latent growth potentials," Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) Director for Special Duties Mr Mugisha Gerase Kamugisha said when presenting the summary of the deliberations.
According to him, the salient features of the plan include shifting from financing based planning to opportunity based planning as well as shifting from sector based prioritisation to programmatic prioritisation.
He mentioned the plan's priorities as building infrastructure, particularly in the energy sector, transportation, and ICT as well as agriculture, with particular focus on production and agro-processing.
"Others are industrial development, particularly that which will increase national capacity to process locally available raw materials and improve tourism, trade, and financial services," he said.
However, stakeholders warned that the successful implementation of the plan will require high levels of discipline in resource mobilisation, coordination, and avoiding the 'business as usual' mentality.
Closing the dialogue, the Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, Mr Mustapha Mkulo, said that the government is committed to give special attention to further strengthen ownership, accountability, improvement in quality and use of country systems as well as reducing aid dependency.
- Readers can access the complete set of documentation from the dialogue, here.
