fbpx
Home East Africa Ndugai apologises to Samia over comment on Tanzania’s external borrowing

Ndugai apologises to Samia over comment on Tanzania’s external borrowing

by Editor lll
0 comment 3 minutes read

By Kwanta Douglas –

Tanzania’s National Assembly Speaker Job Ndugai on Monday apologised for his recent remarks on Tanzania’s borrowing from external sources.

Speaking at a public rally in his Kongwa constituency in Dodoma on December 27, Ndugai said that Tanzania should stop accepting loans from external lenders and instead expand its domestic revenue streams to pay for development projects.  

Ndugai came under attack from within the ruling CCM party for saying the country was in danger of being auctioned off if its external debt burden continued to grow.

At a press conference in the capital Dodoma on Monday, he said, however, that his comments were misinterpreted.

He said he was only answering critics of Parliament’s endorsement of a mobile money transfer levy last year that remains highly unpopular among users.

“It was just a call to Tanzanians to accept taxes, levies and such government charges as a necessary part of increasing internal government revenues to help cover costs for social services such as health, education and the like,” he said.

Ndugai’s remarks last week drew response from President Samia Suluhu Hassan who, a day later, said her administration would not be discouraged from prioritising external loans over domestic taxes to complete key infrastructural projects such as the Standard Gauge Railway and the Julius Nyerere Hydropower projects.

Speaking after the signing of a new $1.93 billion deal with Turkish contractors Yapi Merkezi for another phase of the ongoing SGR project, the president said:

“There are people who thought these projects would ground to a halt so they would have something to say. That’s not going to happen. There is no country anywhere that doesn’t borrow – even the so-called developed countries have bigger loan debts than ours. We will borrow, borrow and borrow in order to finish the projects we have started.

“That way we will be able to complete these projects much sooner and start making money off them to pay off whatever loans we incur. If we were to depend on our own internal revenues, how long would that take?”

Ndugai had asserted that external borrowing for development was not “sustainable” and recommended that alternative means be used to raise funds to finance infrastructure investments. “Higher domestic taxes and expanding the internal revenue tax base is much more preferable,” he said last week.

The House Speaker appeared to be supporting the position adopted by Samia’s predecessor John Magufuli, whose five-and-a-half-year tenure was marked by frequent public claims that his government was paying for most if not all infrastructure projects and other social development initiatives out of its own pocket.

These claims were underscored by often high-handed domestic tax collection methods coupled with tough austerity measures designed to rein in the government’s recurrent expenditure.

However, Ndugai said the video clip of his remarks, which went viral on social media leading to a huge political backlash, was edited to misrepresent his comments.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

About Us

FRONTVIEW AFRICA is a Pan-African online Newspaper and Television with sharp, clear and factual News.

@2024 – All Right Reserved.