THE government has in the current fiscal year allocated 2.64bn/- in serving for the procurement of sanitary pads for teenage girls in government owned schools.

Zainab Katimba, Deputy Minister of State, in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government, told the National Assembly yesterday that of the amount, 1.06bn/- was sourced from capitation grants and 1.58bn/- was sourced from district councils revenue collections.

“As of March this year, 2.2bn/- has been spent for procurement of sanitary pads. However, development partners contributed another 1.5bn/- while private sector-led education programmes contributed 119.5m/-,” said Katimba.

She was responding to a question by Nora Mzeru, Special Seats MP, who wanted to know the government’s plan in place for allocating a special budget for purchasing sanitary pads for teenagers in schools.

According to her, in the 2022/23 financial year the government spent 3.16bn/- in procurement of sanitary pads to serve for teenage girls in schools during menstrual cycle periods.

She said that of the spent amount, 1.97bn/- was sourced from the capitation grants, 539m/- was sourced from revenues collected by district councils and the remaining 655m/- was sourced from development partners.

Katimba said that the government had continued coordinating the access to sanitary pads for teenagers in schools through funds sourced from the capitation grants, development partners and district council’s revenues.

In a supplementary question, Rita Kabati, Special Seats MP argued that what the government is doing in ensuring that allocated funds are disbursed in schools for the procurement of the pads because she is aware that some district councils don’t remit the funds for that purpose.

In her response, Katimba directed district executive directors to endure that the disbursement of funds is well monitored and the intended purpose is observed.

Fatma Toufiq, Special Seats MP, questioned the government’s readiness in cutting down tax on raw materials for production of sanitary pads so that schools can start producing the products.

“The ministry will engage the ministry of finance in seeing a way of deducting tax so that raw material for producing sanitary pads can be supplied at affordable costs,” said Katimba.