The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania needs only TZS 150 billion for 5 years to cover the cost of 28 percent of health insurance for low-income Tanzanians, the country’s religious leaders have said at a recent Breakfast Debate organised by Policy Forum in collaboration with the Interfaith Standing Committee on Economic Justice and Integrity of Creation (ISCEJIC) on September 27, 2019.

Tanzania Development Vision 2025 and Zanzibar Development Vision 2020 are the main blueprints for the country’s economic transformation towards a middle-income country in 2025 as well as the main vehicles for Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation in Tanzania. Data from the Tanzania Civil Society Report on the SDGs shows that over the last decade, Tanzania has recorded economic growth averaging at 6.6 percent per year making the country one of the fastest growing economies in Sub Saharan Africa.

It is no doubt that whether you read articles or analyses related to extractives industry of Tanzania you will be bombarded with banal phrases such as ‘Tanzania is endowed with immense resources including hydrocarbons and solid minerals like gold, diamond, iron, tanzanite and natural gas.’ The main challenge for the country, however, has remained management of the revenues emanating from the extractives sector.

Successful implementation of Agenda 2030 for sustainable development requires partnerships and multi stakeholder approaches. This was said today by the Hon.

The Government of Tanzania has made commitments to provide and safeguard human rights such as the ratification of several core human rights conventions as well as put in place national policies favoring a human rights-based approach to development but there are challenges in concretizing them in practice. When it comes to children’s rights, enforcement also seems to be a shortfall.

The creative and cultural sectors face policy challenges that lead to inconsistent engagement between sector players and relevant ministries/institutions, subsequently apparent unbalanced development of creative and cultural sector; disorganized, mismanaged, fragmented associations in creative and cultural industries, low entrepreneurship skills and non-existent funding mechanisms for the sector. These challenges result from weak and non-existence of appropriate creative and cultural policy.

The 2017/2018 CAG’s report has indicated areas of corruptive and fraudulent transactions amounting to TZS 207.12 billion. The amount is derived from weakness in the management of transit goods TZS 7.975 billion, human resources and pensions 2.59 billion, procurement and contract management TZS 133.17 billion, the expenditure management and budget execution TZS 54.48 billion and in management and collection of own source revenues TZS 8.66 billion.

The tax system can directly reduce inequality by redistributing income from rich to poor, by taxing the rich more heavily and giving the government revenues to spend on public services. In Tanzania, there is a challenge of a large and increasing informal sector which has often gone untaxed hence subjecting a higher tax burden on the few within the formal sector. This in a way contributes to inequality because the informal sector partly constitutes relatively High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIS) whose incomes are not often subjected to tax.

Back in 2006, the Integrated Labour Force Survey (ILFS) noted that the number of informal sector operators in Tanzania was growing fast and their share to the GDP was significant with implications on Government loses in revenue if they were not taxed.

The Embassy of Switzerland in Dar es Salaam through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has launched the third phase of its Social Accountability Programme (SAP) which provides support to key national Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who are working to improve accountability in Tanzania.