PERMANENT Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Finance and Planning Dotto James has asked financial institutions to embrace innovation and accelerate financing of development plans for driving the country’s economy.
The PS yesterday noted that more was needed to be done to accelerate the pace of financing development plans.
He said this in his speech read on his behalf by Mr Evance Bernard, Head of Dar es Salaam’s Sub-treasury of the Ministry of Finance and Planning during a stakeholders’ workshop in Dar es Salaam on finance for development.
The workshop was organised by the Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC). The workshop brought together private and public sectors to discuss issues of financing.
Mr James explained that the workshop was timely when his portfolio was finalising the forthcoming Five Year Development Plan III which required strategic partnership between public and private sectors.
He was optimistic that the workshop would contribute to finding ways of optimal management of financing for Tanzania’s middle-income economy.
TNBC Executive Director, Dr Godwill Wanga, pointed out that it was important that the banks aligned their plans with the national development plan.
“Financial institutions shouldn’t allow funds to remain idle, but finance development projects and the private sector,” Dr Wanga appealed.
He added:” We should work closely with private sector, which contributes significantly to development plans,” he insisted.
UNDP senior official Amon Manyama said long-term financing was crucial for the country’s development.
He also advised the private and public sectors to have experts for writing project proposals to attract funds from international financial institutions such as the World Bank.
For her part, chairperson of Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) Angelina Ngalula asked the Ministry of Finance and Planning to form working groups to facilitate financing of development plans.
She said the working groups had proved to be effective in implementing development projects.
Highlighting some of challenges the private sector was facing, she said the private sector still faced the challenge of high interest rates charged by financial institutions, something which crippled them to make investments.