Districts promised fair share of royalty

nngu007 · 2011-03-19T09:20:54+00:00

THE Government is keen to streamline the disbursement of revenue shares earned from natural resources including royalty, fees and commissions from forests and wildlife to district councils throughout the country. The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Ezekiel Maige, said that at the moment regulations require that all money submitted by district councils relating to natural resources which include tourism fees, hunting, forestry products is directly remitted through the Treasury. "This mechanism is very bureaucratic because it causes delays in disbursement of the money, a situation which is affecting us as a ministry but also you at the district level," Mr Maige told workers of Katavi National Park and senior officials from Mpanda District Council. Mr Maige, who is on a four-day tour of Rukwa Region, was responding to complaints raised by the Mpanda District Executive Director, Engineer Emmanuel Kalobelo, who said that the district has six hunting blocks and thousands of hectares of forests which earned government more than 24bn/- between 2005/10. The minister said it took several years for the Treasury to remit money from such proceeds to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism which also takes several months before going to district councils. "This flow of funds is bureaucratic. For example, until recently, my ministry had not received allocations for 2008/9," the minister noted. The minister urged district councils to be creative and form wildlife management areas (WMA) which will benefit them much more than what is realized from national parks and game reserves. "From WMAs you earn up to 60 per cent of the income compared to 25 per cent which you earn from national parks after deductions are made in respect to the parks," he noted. Presenting a report on the district's natural resources performance in the past five years, Eng. Kalobelo said the district faces serious shortage of manpower, motor vehicles and other equipment partly because of poor budget allocations. "We have failed to meet our target in revenue collection from natural resources because of shortages of resources including money," Kalobelo said. Katavi National Park, which is located in Mpanda district, covers more than 4,000 hectares. The district also has more than 2.8 million hectares of forest cover which is 60 per cent of the district.

Thread starter nngu007
Start date Mar 19, 2011

nngu007

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Districts promised fair share of royalty

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