Samia: Tanzania's growing population a burden on social services

Dar es Salaam. President Samia Suluhu Hassan yesterday described rapid population growth as a burden on the provision of social services in the country, and directed her lieutenants to come up with strategies to improve service delivery to the country’s 61.7 million people.

The Head of State made the remarks when unveiling preliminary results of the 2022 Population and Housing Census 2022 in Dodoma.

Tanzania’s population is 61,741,120, according to the census held in August.

President Hassan said 59,851,357 people were in Tanzania Mainland, while 1,889,773 were in Zanzibar.

She said 31,687,990 out of the total population were women, which is equivalent to 51 percent, while men accounted for 30,053,130, or 49 percent.

The Head of State also unveiled census guidelines, which she said were the first of their kind in Tanzania’s history.

She said the guidelines were aimed at broadening stakeholders’ understanding of the census findings, with the government outlining participatory plans of sustainable development, economically, socially and environmentally.

“It is the responsibility of every stakeholder to make use of the census findings, including government executives, the private sector, and special groups. The document will also help in monitoring and evaluating national development goals set in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.

“The guidelines will also make it possible to monitor and evaluate international plans that have been ratified by the country. The same guidelines will be used in evaluating the country,” she added.

The Head of State therefore called for the use of the census findings in the planning of citizens’ projects, budgets, the private sector and investors’ inclusive plans and sustainable development of the nation.

“These figures may be seen as not a particularly serious problem, given the size of our country, but the fact is that they are a huge burden to the economy,” she said.

She therefore suggested that strong development strategies should be designed to establish how the 61.7 million population could be taken care of.

Furthermore, she said projections show that Tanzania’s population will reach 67,961,097 and 151,252,429 reaching 2025 and 2050, respectively.

However, President Hassan said despite the increase in the population, the findings of the Housing and Postcode Census 2022 showed that Tanzania had a total of 14,348,372 buildings – 13,907,951 in Tanzania Mainland and 440,421 in Zanzibar.

Also, the country has a total of 10,067 health facilities including 7,889 dispensaries; 1,490 health centres and 688 hospitals.

But the National Bureau of Statistics’ 2021 Tanzania in Figures report launched in June 2021 shows that last year the country had 8,549 health facilities, including 7,189 dispensaries, 956, health centres and 404 hospitals.

In the education sector, President Hassan said Tanzania has a total of 25,626 schools including 19,769 and 5,857 primary and secondary schools, respectively.

However, the NBS (2021 Tanzania in Figures) shows that in 2021, the country had a total of 23,843 schools including 18,554 and 5,289 primary and secondary schools, respectively.

The gradual increase in the number of healthcare facilities, primary and secondary schools could be attributed to the significant investment made by President Hassan’s administration.

The investment could be substantial following the introduction of mobile transaction levies whose collections have been directed to addressing healthcare and education infrastructure challenges.

Also, $567.25 million secured in September, 2021 from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in emergency financial assistance under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) benefited the two sectors.

But yesterday, the chairman of the Association of Health Facilities in Tanzania (Aphfta), Dr Egina Makwabe, said despite the massive investment in the health sector, healthcare centres are overwhelmed by the rapid population growth.

Dr Makwabe said much has to be done to increase the number of service providers and medical equipment in order to provide better and reliable health services to citizens.

According to him, the government should increase its collaboration with the private sector in order to increase the number of healthcare centres providing services to the public.

“The government’s efforts shouldn’t end in improving services provided by public facilities, rather it is supposed to support the private sector too. The private sector requires an enabling and cheap environment for access to loans in order to build more service provision centres and improve the quality of service provided in available centres,” he said.

“It is not necessary for the government to build healthcare centres everywhere in the country. Rather they can support privately owned centres or enter in joint ventures, improve the quality of services and take allocated funds to implement similar projects in another area,” he added.

Pharmaceutical Society of Tanzania (PST) President Fadhil Hezekiah suggested that assessment should be done in order to understand places where the healthcare facilities are located.

He said an improved investment environment in the health sector will enable members of the private sector to tap the opportunity for the wider interest of Tanzanians.

But, an education lecturer at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT), Dr Edephonce Nfuka said the good news from the date was that population growth was accompanied by education provision facilities.

He suggested that the government should then focus at improving the quality of education by recruiting more science and mathematics teachers in order to improve a teacher to pupil or student ratio.

“We should also aim at benefiting from the widely covered national backbone network, increasing electricity connectivity and growing mobile phones connectivity to strengthen the Information Communication Technology (ICT) in schools,” he said.

“This will address the shortage of teachers and increase the access to reading materials at this time the country is sailing through the digital economy,” he said.

For his part, an education stakeholder, Mr Nichodemus Shauri, said since independence Tanzania has never recorded an optimal teacher to student ratio, advising that the country was lacking adequate prioritisation in resources allocations.

“If the country can construct roads, build modern markets and implement several strategic projects such as procurement of aircraft, how can such a country fail to end the shortage of teachers in public schools?” he questioned.

“Since Tanzanians are paying tax, the government should make appropriate priority in resource allocations in order to benefit the majority of the population,” he added.

He said Tanzania requires accountable leaders who will spearhead increased investment in public schools where the children of both leaders and ordinary citizens will be admitted instead of scrambling for private schools.