Next budget to focus on industrialisation: govt

Dodoma. The government has said it plans to focus on sectors and projects that create a more conducive environment for industrialisation in the next budget.

Presenting the government’s proposals for the 2018/19 financial year at an MPs seminar here yesterday, Finance minister Dr Philip Mpango said more budgetary allocations in the development budget will also be made to cross-cutting sectors that will help make the industrialisaiton drive more inclusive.

Dr Mpango said the government plans to raise about Sh32.47 trillion from both domestic and foreign sources during the 2018/19 financial year. The infrastructure projects that Dr Mpango yesterday outlined include Stiegler’s Gorge hydropower project (2100MW), central corridor’s standard gauge railway (636kms), Hoima-Tanga oil pipeline and the Mchuchuma-Liganga coal to power project.

Other projects include development of Mkulazi Sugar Estate, development of the Kurasini business centre and the development of the Bagamoyo and Kigamboni special economic zones.

To make the industrialisation drive more inclusive, Dr Mpango said more resources would be allocated in the health, education and water sectors.

“In this respect, the government plans to rehabilitate public libraries in all regions, build laboratories in pulic secondary schools, expand health services and public health education” he noted.

As far as the agriculture sector is concerned, the government plans to invest in irrigation schemes, allocate more funds for the purchase of farm inputs as well as wide markets for farmers,” Dr Mpango, a former World Bank official, who previously taught economics at the University of Dar es Salaam, noted.

Despite the ambitious industrialistion expenditure plan, the allocation of the development budget is set to remain around 37 per cent (Sh11.582 trillion) of the whole budget as in previous years. Recurrent expenditures are set to take Sh20.468 trillion, Dr Mpango said.

“The government would seek foreign aid to the tune of Sh2.676 trillion, equivalent to 8 per cent of the total budgetary resources,” he noted.

The government is also expected to borrow Sh6 trillion through treasury papers as well as Sh3.1 trillion from foreign commercial sources.

Meanwhile, the government is also expected to spend 10 per cent of the 2018/19 budget, equivalent to Sh10 trillion, to service the national debt including Sh2.1 trillion for payments of interests for domestic and foreign debts, Dr Mpango told legislators yesterday. The government would also spend Sh7.36 trillion on the wage bill and Sh3 trililon on other charges (OC).