From The British High Commission Dar es Salaam:Response To Accusations Against The British High Commissioner
British Prime Minister David Cameron (R) and President of the United
Republic of Tanzania Jakaya Kikwete (L) talk at the start of a meeting
at No.10 Downing Street on March 31, 2014 in London, England.
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Response To Accusations Against The British High Commissioner
*British High Commission confirms strong bilateral relationship with
Tanzania and next tranche of Budget Support to be paid in July.
There have been a number of inaccurate statements made recently
concerning the UK and the British High Commissioner to Tanzania,
including that we are cutting budget support and that the High
Commissioner has been encouraging other donors to do the same. The
British High Commission wishes to make very clear that this is not the
case. The UK will be paying its next tranche of Budget Support of
£23.75 million (Tsh 65 billion) in July. We would not want to pre-empt
the outcome of the Controller and Auditor General’s investigation into
IPTL.
We also strongly refute the extraordinary allegations on social media
that the British High Commissioner bribed MPs to sabotage the Ministry
of Energy and Mineral’s budget. These are completely untrue.
The UK and Tanzania have excellent bilateral relations. President
Kikwete recently made a Guest of Government visit to the UK and had warm
meetings with the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, Foreign
Secretary William Hague and His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, amongst
others.
The talks were held in a friendly and constructive atmosphere.
President Kikwete and David Cameron welcomed the increasingly
significant and strategic partnership between Tanzania and the UK. They
pledged to deepen the relationship, building on shared prosperity and
security interests, shared history, Commonwealth values, language, law,
military doctrine, and close people to people ties.
The UK is the Number 1 investor in Tanzania with 35% share of foreign
direct investment. According to the Tanzania Investment Centre, UK
companies invested around USD 5.1bn (TSh 8,415,000,000,000/-) in
Tanzania in the period 1990-2013 (June), creating 271,000 jobs – almost
four times as many as any other investor. Bilateral trade was worth USD
340 million (Tsh 561,000,000,000/-) British firms play an important
role in all the major sectors including energy, communications,
construction, banking, agriculture, and the nascent oil and gas sector,
where the British company BG Group alone has invested in excess of USD 1
billion (Tsh 1,650,000,000,000/-), with substantially more in prospect.
The UK has pledged to help Tanzania achieve middle income status
through accelerated and inclusive, private sector led growth. This will
be an increasing focus of UK development cooperation in Tanzania, and
will include sharing UK experience of public private partnerships and
promotion of partnerships between UK and Tanzanian companies to
maximise local job creation and develop local skills. Tanzania is one
of only five African countries with which the UK has signed a High Level
Prosperity Partnership, focussing on 4 priority areas: agriculture,
extractives, renewable energy and improving the business environment.
We are also working in partnership with the Government of Tanzania to
implement a G8/Tanzania Lands Transparency Initiative.
Tanzania is one of DFID’s largest African country programmes. Our
development budget for Tanzania for this year alone (2014/15) is £165
million (Tsh 452 billion). Of this figure, £71.5 million (Tsh 196
billion) is direct budget support to the Government of Tanzania. An
independent review of donor support to the Government’s budget last year
concluded that UK funding had enabled Tanzania to expand services,
especially in education and roads, throughout the country, making an
important contribution to improving lives and opportunities for poor
people.
The UK also does a lot of work on English Language Teaching,
Education and the Arts, creating opportunities for young Tanzanians to
engage with other cultures and develop international perspectives. This
is helping young Tanzanians access the best educational opportunities at
home and abroad to improve their skills in preparation for study and
work. For example, the British Council has some 300 school links between
Tanzania and the UK through which 3,000 school leaders and 30,000
teachers have been trained in 25 hubs around Tanzania. We are also
creating opportunities for young Tanzanians to study abroad on
scholarship programmes like the Chevening and Commonwealth Scholarship
Schemes.
Our relationship with Tanzania is broad and deep, and our commitment
is for the long term. We will continue to look for every opportunity to
build on the strong partnership we have with Tanzania across an
increasing range of shared priorities.
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