Tanzania trails in East Africa on agro financing

Dodoma. Tanzania is lagging behind other East African countries in financing agriculture, Parliament was told on Tuesday.

The Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee said that while Rwanda topped regional performance with 61 marks in implementing the Malabo Declaration, Tanzania scored 3.1. Kenya, Burundi and Uganda scored 4.8, 4.7 and 4.4, respectively. The Malabo Declaration is a set of goals aiming for a more targeted approach to achieving the agricultural vision for the continent, which is shared prosperity and improved livelihoods.

The committee also voiced its concern about what it said was an inadequate budget proposed for the Ministry of Agriculture despite the sector being the biggest employer in the country and a key pillar of the economy.

Although agriculture provided 65 per cent of industrial raw materials and employed 65.5 per cent of Tanzanians, it was not growing fast enough to meet the aspirations of a country that hopes to transform itself into a middle-income economy in the next few years, MPs said.

Agriculture contributed 30.1 per cent to the economy in 2017 compared with 29.2 per cent in 2016.

Agriculture minister Charles Tizeba asked Parliament to endorse Sh170.2 billion for the 2018/19 financial year. The sum includes Sh98.12 billion for development projects, but lawmakers said there were gaps that would directly affect farmers.

The budget, which has two votes (43 and 24), is lower than the Sh221 billion allocated for the same votes in the current financial year.

The ministry covered agriculture, livestock and fisheries with four votes (43, 99, 64 and 24), which together have been allocated Sh267.865 billion for the current financial year.

The committee said Tanzania was far from implementing the Maputo and Malabo declarations. The Maputo Declaration requires that African countries allocate at least 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture.

Dr Christine Ishengoma said when presenting the team’s report that the government must reverse the trend to stimulate growth of the sector.

“Tanzania has a very a small agriculture budget, and, to make matters worse, funds are not released on time,” she said.

Dr Ishengoma cited as an example the current ministerial budget, saying the government had so far released only Sh16.5 billion, or 11 per cent, of the endorsed funds.

“The committee’s analysis shows that the ratio of the agriculture budget to the main budget has been decreasing from 7.8 per cent in 2010/11 to 6.9 per cent in 2011/12; 4.9 per cent in 2016/17 and 4.8 per cent currently. This flies in face of our endeavour to create an industrial economy which largely depends on agriculture for raw materials,” she said.

Mr Zitto Kabwe (Kigoma Urban-ACT Wazalendo) said current levels of investment in agriculture would do nothing to promote productivity.

“Investment should be channelled to agriculture infrastructure and the whole value chain from input supply to markets and value addition,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, six civil society organisations involved in agriculture advocacy – Policy Forum, Forum CC, Actionaid, Oxfam, TGNP and Agriculture Non-State Actors Forum (Ansaf) – issued a joint statement in Dodoma, lamenting what they said was a “shoestring” budget for agriculture.

Some MPs also said the budget allocated to the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) was too small, saying this would hit farmers hard. “NFRA asked for Sh86 billion, but the government allocated just Sh15 billion. How will it be able to buy maize from farmers? Let farmers export their maize if the agency won’t be able to buy it,” said Mr Moshi Kakoso (Mpanda Rural-CCM)