Under an agreement with the East African Common Market the government has been, since 2007/08, issuing subsidies to fisheries to the tune of 5 percent tax relief on fishing boat engines, zero rating tax on imported raw materials used to manufacture fishing equipment.
This was revealed yesterday in Parliament by Livestock Development and Fisheries deputy minister Benedict Ole-Nangoro when responding to a question raised by Sylivester Kasulumbayi (Maswa-East, Chadema).
Kasulumbayi had wanted to know, when the government intends to start providing the said subsidies arguing that only the agriculture sector was getting priority yet the fisheries also contribute immensely to the national coffers.
But as evident in the deputy minister’s response, the government is already providing such subsidies to the sector. In fact, the government has also removed Value Added Tax on fishing equipment such as fishing nets and boat engines.
Also, the government, through the Marine and Coastal Environment Management Project (MACEMP) has dished out more than 3bn/- to implement various fishing entrepreneur projects including purchasing modern fishing equipment which has benefited more than 4000 people.
On top of that, a total of 339m/- was disbursed to 198 members of the Mafia’s Sea conservation and 436 from the Sea conservation of the coast of Mnazi , expounded the deputy minister.
He was referring to the intersecting point with river Ruvuma where the government issued the said amount to facilitate the exchange of destructive fishing equipment with those that are legally allowed.
Further, the livestock sector has also received similar development programmes, Nangoro explained. The government through Participatory Agricultural Development and Empowerment Project (PADEP) and District Agricultural Development Plans (DADPs) has offered subsidies for the construction and rehabilitation of 1,278 cow dips at a cost of more than 14bn/-, the deputy said.
Also, between 2000 and 2013, the government has provided subsidies to procure cattle’s vaccines worth more than 4bn/- for over 47 million doses.
That livestock aide brought another matter to discussion, vaccine distribution. In his supplementary question, Vincent Ole Telele (Ngorongoro, CCM) asked the deputy minister to explain criteria used by his ministry in the dispensing of animal vaccines to livestock keepers across the country.
A question to which the deputy minister explained that the ministry sends its officials to conduct surveys and report back on the severance of infection in each region and so the ministry prioritises the dispensing of vaccine in accordance to regional need based on severity of infections..
We have statistics for every district, our officials consider the number of livestock and frequency of re-occurrence of infections , the deputy said but also highlighted another factor limiting the scope of distribution saying it was also dependant on the availability of funds.
On a positive note, the deputy minister disclosed that in the next fiscal year, the livestock sector will be among six other prioritised sectors.
Ole-Nangoro revealed this when responding to a supplementary question from Lekule Laiza (Longido, CCM), who asked if the government had any plans to establish a fund to cater for the frequent need of vaccines for diseases affecting animals’, arguing that the rate of outbreaks is too high.
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