Poverty and Human Development Report 2009 - UNDP in Tanzania

POVERTY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009
Table 27: LGA Revenue Collections, 2001 to 2006/07 (TShs. Million)
122
2001 2002 2003 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07
Overall
Growth
2004/05 to
2006/07
Tshs per
capita in
2006/07
Urban 23,113 25,569 28,656 23,728 28,139 36,271 53% 4.83
Rural 28,086 22,774 29,083 19,142 21,151 27,113 42% 1.05
Note: In 2004, the financial year for LGAs shifted from a calendar year to the same fiscal year as that of
Central Government. The data from 2005 onwards represent fiscal years.
Source: PMO-RALG finance data for most recent years available at www.logintanzania.net
LGA Expenditure Patterns
Recent data reveal several trends in local government spending: 79
i) A very large share (78.5%) of local expenditure is recurrent expenditure.
ii) Most recurrent spending – 56.6% of all local spending, or almost three-quarters of local
recurrent spending – is spent on personal emoluments.
iii) Recurrent expenditure is heavily concentrated in just two sectors – primary education and
basic health services account for three-quarters of recurrent spending and two-thirds of
all local spending.
These local expenditure patterns are driven mainly by the fiscal transfer system, which limits
the discretion of local authorities to revise allocations by sector or by type of expenditure
(i.e. between personal emoluments, other charges and development). With little locally-generated
revenue, and very tight budgets compared with responsibilities, LGAs have limited discretion in
spending. In discussion of the LGCDG earlier, the level of discretionary development expenditure
has also been heavily influenced by national development goals, particularly the prioritisation of
secondary education.
Corruption
The specific MKUKUTA indicator for corruption is ‘number of corruption cases convicted as a
percentage of the number of investigated cases sanctioned by the Director of Public Prosecutions’.
However, corruption cases frequently take more than a year to prosecute and thus the number
of cases in any year may not reflect the number of new cases referred to the courts. Therefore,
in this PHDR, the proxy indicator – ‘number of corruption cases convicted’ – is reported. Data
has been sourced from the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) and the
Tanzania Corruption Tracker System. Data from these two sources indicate that the number
of corruption cases convicted remained low for the period between 2000 and 2005, but has
increased to 37 cases in 2008. However, these data in isolation cannot confirm whether recent
increases in cases convicted represent greater diligence in prosecuting corruption, an increase
in corruption itself, or an increase in the reporting of corruption.
79 As summarised in PMO-RALG, 2007c.