National Assembly Speaker Anne Makinda was Thursday forced to postpone the parliamentary session to Monday, after legislators rejected the 2013/2014 budget proposals for the Ministry of Water, on grounds that the estimates are manifestly inadequate.
Irrespective of their political affiliation, the legislators rose in turns and expressed disappointment on the proposals, arguing that funds allocated for development of water projects were meagre and insignificant for massive requirement of the sector.
After heated debate that witnessed fits of flaring tempers, Iramba West legislator (CCM) Mr Mwigulu Nchemba, rose and sought Speaker’s guidance on whether the session should proceed in such a situation.
“Madame Speaker, I beg for your considered guidance, as to why the proceedings should not be postponed to allow the government and the Parliamentary Budget Committee to deliberate on the estimates,” he suggested.Ubungo MP, Mr John Mnyika (Chadema) and Mr Joshua Nassari (Arumeru – East – Chadema) also joined the chorus, asking for revision of the estimates.
Postponing the session, Ms Makinda directed the Ministry of Water, the Treasury and Parliamentary Budget Committee to explore other avenues for boosting the disputed budget proposals.
“I postpone the session until next Monday, so that the Ministry of Water, Treasury and the Budget Committee can meet and see how to improve the proposed estimates,” she ruled.
Earlier, most of legislators called on the government to review the estimates and look on the possibility of reallocation of funds from other votes, particularly slashing expenses on fuel, domestic and foreign travel.
In its 2013/2014 ministry’s budget the government proposed to spend 398bn/-, out of which 397bn/- are on development programmes and 18.9bn/- on recurrent votes.
Mr Peter Serukamba (Kigoma Urban-CCM), Dr Cyril Chami (Moshi Rural-CCM), Mr Mnyika, Mr John Chiligati (Manyoni East-CCM) and Mr Ahmed Shabiby (Gairo-CCM) urged the government to come to the rescue of the sector.
“We’ve set aside 4tri/- for other charges (OCs), let us slash OCs by 15 per cent so that we can realise 600bn/- to be directed to water supply schemes. We can reduce overseas trips and other unnecessary engagements to enhance funding to water projects,” he said.Mr Mnyika noted that the country should tighten spending and set aside at least 500bn/ every year for water development projects.
“The problem is that the government is not ready to dare, we must dare, some people dared in this country and we managed to have in place big things like the Lake Victoria water project,” charged Mr Mr Shabiby.
Rev. Luckson Mwanjale (Mbeya Rural-CCM) and Mr Michael Lazer (Longido-CCM) went a mile further, saying they were ready for a fraction of their allowances to be slashed for the sake of boosting the water budget.
Many MPs also punched holes on World Bank funded projects, arguing that despite being costly and slow in implementation, most of them have failed.”The World Bank should not give us conditions on implementation of the projects, for instance, one well can cost up to 488m/-, this is wasteful spending because such amount can be used to drill four wells.
“We’ve to conduct an inventory of these projects to establish their worthiness and operationalisation,” commented Mr Livingstone Lusinde (Mtera-CCM).Mr Laizer and Rev. Israel Natse (Karatu-Chadema) said that people should now forget about World Bank projects because they had failed, arguing the government to come up with homegrown initiatives to end water blues.
Mr Moses Machali (Kasulu Urban-NCCR-Mageuzi), Ms Stella Manyanya (Special Seats-CCM), Mr Mnyika, Rev. Natse and Mr Shabiby condemned water engineers for sabotaging water projects.
Mr Shabiby claimed that the engineers were colluding with experts at the Ministry of Water to misappropriate funds and vowed to move a private motion praying for an overhaul of the Ministry of Water.
Most of the MPs who contributed during the budget estimates called on the government to push for widespread application of rain water harvesting technology to mitigate shortages and boost irrigation.
By LEONARD MWAKALEBELA, Tanzania Daily News