Zanzibar — Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Khalid Salum Mohamed, has dismissed claims that Zanzibar government is now bankrupt, stressing that revenue collection is good.
"Just ignore social media rumours from the opposition that the government is broke and that it survives by borrowing money from businesspeople. In fact, we have been on track in revenue collection," he told reporters at his office yesterday. He said in the past three months revenue collection has been good, reflecting control of unnecessary expenditure as directed by President Ali Mohamed Shein. Briefing reporters here about tax collection and refuting claims on bankruptcy, the minister said the government has focused at meeting basic needs for the people and paying up debts.
"We are determined to beat the target of collecting more than 800bn/- before Dr Shein ends his term. Our target for April/June was to collect 117.66bn/-. We managed to collect 117.04bn/- (99.5 per cent)," he said. He said that the biggest ever collection was in June when 49.51bn/- was collected to surpassing the traditional monthly collection of 45bn/-. Tax collection has jumped by 42.7 per cent from 82.45bn/- to 117.66bn/- in three months, the minister said.
The Zanzibar Ministry of Finance has been working closely with the Union finance ministry to ensure that reforms made on tax collected in the Mainland do not affect the people of Zanzibar.
By Issa Yussuf, The Daily News via AllAfrica
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