Nyalandu at loggerheads with Lembeli over hotel fees.

 
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