Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, Lazaro Nyalandu.
By Gerald Kitabu
28th February 2015
A parliamentary committee has
declared it will take to task the Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources
Lazaro Nyalandu over failure to sign Government Notice (GN) on the new fee
rates for hotels in the national parks as directed by the Parliament.
Chairman of the committee – on
Lands, Natural Resources and the Environment - James Lembeli said the minister
was supposed to have signed the new rates by today, he told reporters over the
weekend.
Speaking on the sidelines of an
international stakeholders’ workshop, Lemebili said: “The minister had
promised the Parliament to sign the notice on February 15, but the committee
further gave him until the end of the month.
“This is contempt of Parliament and
we are going to tell the Speaker of the National Assembly about this so she can
take measures, ” he said.
The workshop was on exploring
evidence, mapping the way forward and planning for future actions of developing
biomass energy in Tanzania.
According to the committee, the
concession fees must be paid as a percentage of what a tourist pays for a room
per night but the ministry continued collecting the fees under the old system
despite winning a case filed at High Court in Arusha.
Nyalandu recently told reporters in
Dar es Salaam that the proposals under the GN denied the government revenues.
He said the notice that had been anticipated set up fee rates for 27 lodges and
hotels.
He maintained that he would only
sign the GN after studying it and he is convinced that all hotels were included
in the notice to establish fairness in the matter.
Members of Parliament earlier this
month accused the ministry for the delay to sign the GN, saying it had caused
the Tanzania National Parks and Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority to lose
about Sh80bn between 2011 and 2014.
This they said was due to a pending
case at the High Court, Arusha Division , a situation that caused state
agencies to fail to collect fees from tourist hotels.
In 2011, hotel owners under two
authorities filed a case at High Court, in Arusha Division, protesting a move
to introduce a system of charging fees on tourists sleeping at the hotels.
On September 12, 2014 the High Court
issued a verdict in favour of the government, directing a GN be issued to
implement the new rates.
Early this month the minister stated
that he would not sign the GN on the fee rates in the parks, unless government
stake in revenue collection is guaranteed.
“I will sign the Government Notice
after I am convinced there is an equal schedule of payment rates to all lodges
and hotel owners in the national parks for assured revenue collection,”
Nyalandu was quoted as saying. He said under the notice the proposed rates are
between $50 and $60 per night.
“You have a hotel charging $5,000
per night and you want to raise that to $50 instead of the ten per cent rate,
this is unacceptable,” he told reporters.
Debating the annual report presented
in the House early this year, Zitto Kabwe (Kigoma North-Chadema), accused
Nyalandu of failing to work on the directives of the parliamentary committee.
“If the minister fails to work on
the government notice by this evening, then he should quit. We cannot tolerate
losing billions of public funds, which could be used to improve social
services,” Kabwe charged.
Kabwe also accused Lembeli,
charging: “You should have taken action after the ministry failed to meet
the January 28 deadline; but you have done nothing and this is because you are
close to the minister.”
On September 12, 2014 the High Court
issued a verdict in favour of the government and directed the state to issue a
GN to effect the rates. “My committee is, however, concerned that four months
have passed since the verdict was issued but the Ministry of Natural Resources
and Tourism is yet to issue the GN.
“During this period, the two
authorities lose Sh2bn per month. We directed the ministry to issue the GN by
January 28, but nothing has been done so far,” Lembeli stated.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
