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Budget session begins today
2007-06-12 09:40:02
By Bilal Abdul-Aziz, Dodoma
The National Assembly convenes here this morning for a 60-day budget session for 2007/2008 financial year. The crucial gathering will end on August 10, this year.
It is the second Bunge session since President Jakaya Kikwete assumed power in December 2005.
Parliament Principal Information Officer Ernest Zulu said yesterday that the first two weeks of the meeting would be for tabling, discussing and endorsing the main government budget.
``The budget will be tabled on Thursday at 4pm and shortly after, Parliament will be adjourned until Monday to give legislators time to digest so that they ready themselves for debate,`` said Zulu.
He said following the agreement of East African Community parliaments, Tanzania`s budget will be read simultaneously with the annual financial estimates of Kenya and Uganda.
Zulu said estimates for the Prime Minister`s Office would be debated on the third week of the House session, soon after the main budget has been endorsed.
``Budget estimates for other ministries will then follow,`` he said.
The government has said that this year’s financial plan will allocate huge chunks of funds to key social services and economic sectors, particularly education, infrastructure and agriculture.
The total budget for the next fiscal year is expected to reach 6.1 tr/- whereby 2.5tr/- comes from foreign aid including the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Multilateral Relief Initiative (MDRI) and loans, while 3.5tn/- is domestic revenue.
Some 3.966tr/- are earmarked for recurrent expenditure and 2.101 tr/- for development expenditure.
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