PRIME Minister's Office on Wednesday asked Parliament to endorse its proposed budget of 173.7bn/-, among others, aimed at funding the 2024 local government elections and preparations for the 2025 General Election.
The budget proposal for the next financial year has increased by 24.9bn/- . The house endorsed 148.8bn/- for the PM's office and institutions for the current fiscal year and 132.7bn as Parliament budget.
The new budget will also focus on enhancing effectiveness in production sectors such as agriculture, livestock, fisheries and industries.
When tabling the proposal in the House on Wednesday, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said out of the proposed budget, about 121.4bn/- is for recurrent and the remaining 52.3bn/- for development budget.
Meanwhile, the PM asked the Parliament to give a green light to proposed 165.6bn/- for the Parliament budget, of which 160.5bn/- for recurrent and 5.2bn/- for development expenditure.
Elaborating on the PMO's budget, Mr Majaliwa noted that it intends to finance activities of improving permanent voters' register, election management systems and to continue with the process of reviewing the election laws, including preparing regulations for Presidential, Parliamentary, councilors elections as well as providing voter education.
"Let me take this opportunity to encourage leaders of political parties to motivate their members and all eligible Tanzanians to register in the permanent voters' register and acquire valid voter identity cards once the exercise begins," he stated.
He further assured that the government has continued giving priority to the agriculture sector in order to uplift national and individual income.
The government has continued taking several measures aimed at increasing effectiveness in production of food and cash crops.
The measures include enabling farmers access quality seeds that sustain in the country's weather, providing farm input subsidy, particularly fertiliser and seeds, and enabling availability of new technologies and modern farm equipment.
Mr Majaliwa went on mentioning other key measures as increasing agricultural areas by introducing new irrigation schemes to ensure availability of market for crops within and outside the country so that farmers could benefit from their crops.
In the current financial year, the government has signed 31 contracts worth 284.1bn/- for repair and construction of irrigation schemes.
The agreements are meant for construction of eight dams, 13 new schemes and repair of 17 irrigation schemes.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The construction and repair of those schemes would increase the area for irrigation by 50,930 hectares, hence making a total of 778,210 hectares for irrigation, up from 727,280 hectares available in2021/22.
Premier Majaliwa further noted that despite weather challenges, many parts of the country experienced availability of enough foods.
In 2022/23 production of food crops was 17.4 million tonnes compared to actual demand of 15.1 million tonnes.
"This production has assured the country of availability of enough food by 115 per cent during the 2023/24 season," he said.
"The government has continued to take various measures to ensure the state of food availability is strengthened," he added.
By January this year, a total of 29,084 tonnes of maize were distributed to 59 councils that faced food shortage in the 2022/23 season.
The maize was sold at low prices in order to strengthen food availability in those areas.
To make budget implementation successful, the PM directed ministries and government institutions to heighten revenue collection and strengthen financial management.
Also, stakeholders and the government at large should continue using the result of the 2022 National Population and Housing Census.
