MPs fight private sector’s corner on key govt projects
Dodoma. The Parliamentary Budget Committee yesterday cautioned the government against sidelining the private sector in implementing development projects.
It advised the government to adopt the public-private partnership (PPP) model in undertaking projects to avoid the national debt from swelling.
“The committee believes that it is possible to check the country’s debt increase by implementing development projects through public-private partnerships,” said the committee chairperson, Ms Hawa Ghasia, when tabling a report during the fourth sitting of the National Assembly here.
The committee advised Tanzania to take a leaf out of books of Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and South Africa where PPP strategy had worked well.
“This strategy has helped those countries in implementing infrastructure projects, the production sector and in export processing zones.’’
The Bunge team emphasised the importance of having a friendly business environment to attract more investors and tackling challenges facing the financial sector to accessibility of funding for projects.
The report shows that by March 2017, the national debt was $17.93 billion and by December 2017, it had increased to $21.308 billion.
The committee proposals come on the heels of a National Bureau of Statistics report that the economic growth slowed to 6.8 per cent during the third quarter of last year compared with 7.8 per cent during the second quarter of the same year.
The gross domestic product at 2007 constant price in absolute terms increased to Sh12.4 trillion, up from Sh11.6 trillion in the corresponding quarter in 2016. The committee highlighted key areas that the government can take into consideration in drawing up the national development plan and laying groundwork for the 2018/19 national budget framework.
Ms Ghasia said since 70 per cent of Tanzanians depended on through agriculture and fisheries, the government should put more emphasis on those sectors to speed up growth.
The committee also urged the government to undertake projects it can manage at a specific period instead of embarking on many of them at once it cannot complete on time.
