Tanzania's budget speech 2020/21 by Dr Mpango
PREAMBLE
1. Honourable Speaker, I beg to move that the esteemed Parliament resolves to receive, debate and approve the Government’s Revenue and Expenditure Estimates for the year 2020/21.
This is the fifth national budget under the Fifth Phase Government under the leadership of His Excellency, Dr. John Pombe Joseph Magufuli, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
The budget is presented in line with Article 137 of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania of 1977, together with Section 26 of the Budget Act, CAP 439.
2. Honourable Speaker, the speech is submitted together with four volumes of budget books: Volume I provides Revenue Estimates; Volume II presents Recurrent Expenditure Estimates for Ministries, Independent Departments and Agencies; Volume III covers Recurrent Expenditure Estimates for Regional Secretariats and Local Government Authorities; and Volume IV is for Development Expenditure Estimates for Ministries, Independent Departments, Agencies, Regional Secretariats and Local Government
Authorities.
In addition, the Finance Bill 2020 and Appropriation Bill 2020 are part of this Speech.
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I. REVIEW OF 2019/20 BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION
Revenue Performance
3. Honourable Speaker, in 2019/20 budget, the Government projected to collect 33.11 trillion
shillings from both internal and external sources, up to April 2020 a total of 26.13 trillion shillings has been collected, equivalent to 92.4 percent of the annual target. The breakdown of resources mobilized up to April 2020 as compared to the target of the same period is as follows:
i. Revenue collected by Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), was 14.63 trillion shillings,
equivalent to 93.4 percent of the target;
ii. Non-tax revenue amounted to 2.25 trillion shillings, equivalent to 80.0 percent of the
target;
iii. Local Government Authorities’ (LGAs) own sources amounted to 571.12 billion shillings,
equivalent to 89.7 percent of the target;
iv. Grants and concessional loans disbursed amounted to 2.41 trillion shillings, equivalent to
94.5 percent of the target;
v. Domestic borrowing including rollover amounted to 4.45 trillion shillings, equivalent to
103.8 percent of the target; and
vi. External non-concessional borrowing amounted to 1.82 trillion shillings, equivalent to 78.7 percent of the target.
4. Honourable Speaker, during July 2019 to April 2020, revenue collected by TRA increased by 13.6 percent compared to the same period in 2018/19. The growth was attributed to: strengthening enforcement of tax laws and proper management of Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs) in order to curb tax evasion; provision of taxpayers’ education and
taxpayer services; and strengthening mineral control. In addition, taxpayers’ compliance has
increased as a result of improvement in provision of economic and social services including water, education, health, supportive infrastructure of roads, electricity and abolishing nuisance fees and levies to improve business and investment environment in the country.
5. Honourable Speaker, Government securities market performance has improved due to: increased liquidity in the commercial banks; continued listing of treasury bond at Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange; and public awareness to encourage their participation in investment in Treasury bills and bonds.
6. Honourable Speaker, the impressive performance of grants and concessional loans from
Development Partners was attributed to Government’s efforts in implementing the underlying principles stipulated in the Development Cooperation Framework (DCF). The Framework offers opportunity for dialogue that enables timely 5 disbursement of funds for implementation of development projects. Expenditure Trend
7. Honourable Speaker, the approved budget for 2019/20 was 33.11 trillion shillings, out of which, 20.86 trillion shillings was recurrent expenditure and 12.25 trillion shillings was development expenditure. During July 2019 to April 2020, the Government had released 24.85 trillion shillings equivalent to 92.4 percent of the period estimate. Out of that, 17.22 trillion shillings was recurrent expenditure, which included 5.83 trillion shillings for wages and salaries for public servants, 2.91 trillion shillings for Other Charges and 8.48 trillion shillings for Government debt service and other expenditures related to the Consolidated Fund Services.
8. Honourable Speaker, as of April, 2020 the Government had released 7.63 trillion shillings for implementation of development projects equivalent to 65.9 percent of the target. Out of which, 6.65 trillion shillings was domestic funds equivalent to 87.2 percent and 976.90 billion shillings was external financing equivalent to 12.8 percent. Further, 1.28 trillion shillings was directly disbursed to projects by Development Partners.
9. Honourable Speaker, allow me to present some achievements registered by the Government from July 2019 to April 2020 as follows:
