Balanced investment key to Tanzania’s economic growth

ARUSHA: THE Executive Director of the Public-Private Partnership Centre (PPP Centre), David Kafulila, has stressed the need for Tanzania to strike a careful balance between investing in infrastructure and developing human capital, saying sustainable economic growth depends on the two advancing hand in hand.

Speaking during a public lecture before academics and students at the Tengeru Institute of Community Development (TICD) in Arusha, Kafulila explained that both areas are interdependent and require a careful operational balance to avoid what he described as the “sharing of poverty.”He explained that investment in infrastructure such as roads, railways, airports and electricity stimulates productive activities in industries and agriculture. As production increases, tax revenue collection grows, employment opportunities are created and, ultimately, individual incomes improve.

However, he pointed out that sustained investment in people through education and healthcare builds citizens’ productivity and technical capacity, enabling them to participate in, innovate and construct modern infrastructure.

Kafulila further explained that since the Third Phase Government under the late Benjamin Mkapa, through the Fourth Phase Government under Dr Jakaya Kikwete, the Fifth Phase Government under the late Dr John Magufuli, and now the Sixth Phase Government led by President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania has maintained a strong budgetary balance to ensure that infrastructure and human capital are developed together without neglecting either side.