By 
The Tanzanian government has fetched 48.4bn/- from the mobile money transaction charges introduced mid last month with 37bn/- disbursed for the construction of 150 health centres.
The Minister for Finance and Planning Dr Mwigulu Nchemba told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday that an additional 7bn/- will also be transferred to the Presidents’ Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PORALG) Ministry to finance the construction of 560 classrooms.
The construction of the classrooms will help to accommodate increased number of pupils and students in primary and secondary schools in the next academic year, according to Dr Nchemba. 22.5bn/- has already been sent to the PORALG for the construction of 90 health centres, whereas today (yesterday), we have transacted an additional 15bn/- that will be received by Monday,” he said.
For the part of Zanzibar, Dr Nchemba said from July 15 to yesterday, the Indian Ocean semi-autonomous archipelagos had collected 1.66bn/-, noting the money would also be channeled to serve the intended purpose.
“This shows a positive progress… the establishment of these levies hasn’t affected volume of mobile money transactions as it has been said, as the available data shows that the trend has remained the same before and after the new charges came to effect,” he explained.
However, he said the government would meet with telecommunications companies to see better ways of harmonising the charges for the sake of clearing the confusion.
“We are still working on directives issued by President Samia Suluhu Hassan regarding the matter, and it will be sorted very soon as right now it is in its final stages,” noted the minister.
Dr Nchemba urged Tanzanians to keep on paying tax, since the collections are meant to be spent on improving provision of social services. Speaking of the 100/- levies that have been added to petroleum products, the minister said a total of 24bn/- were collected in July, this year.
“And for this month (August), we are estimating to have collected over 20bn/-, this money is meant to improve road networks being maintained by the Tanzania rural roads agency (Tarura),” he noted.
Present at the event, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dr Faustine Ndugulile said the government is working on concerns from members of the public regarding the introduction of mobile money tariffs.
Through the 2021/22 budget tabled in the Parliament last week by the Finance and Planning Minister Dr Mwigulu Nchemba, the government proposed a levy of between 10/- to 10,000/-in each mobile money transaction of sending and withdrawing.
For her part, the PORALG Minister Ummy Mwalimu assured that the money that had been received in her docket will be spent for the intended purpose.
“No single shilling will be misused, and I’m instructing that the beneficiaries’ local government authorities should use force accounts in undertaking the construction,” she noted.
She assured the government’s intention to continue improving provision of social services, including education and health services, saying the ministry will continue to be keen on supervising all the projects which are under construction.
Ms Ummy said the construction of 150 new hospitals and 500 classrooms will play a great role in reducing a shortage of the health and education infrastructures across the country.
“Currently, the country has over 3,600 wards while health centres are only 627, again only 207 out of 570 divisions have health centres. This shows a dire need to improve efforts in constructing the facilities,” she explained, instructing for the construction to kick off in the next two weeks.
Comments