Tanzania excels in debt stats

DAR ES SALAAM: THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) said early this week that Tanzania made significant progress in strengthening the compilation and dissemination of public sector debt statistics amid accuracy and reliability.

The country, according to the Bretton Wood institution high-level summary technical assistance report, made remarkable strides in enhancing its public debt management as per criteria set.

“This is a commendable effort to greater accuracy and reliability of debt data,” IMF said after data quality assessment for public sector debt statistics mission conducted last September.

The mission was undertaken as part of a project to strengthen the quality of public sector debt in selected African countries funded by Japan.

The mission reviewed the Public Sector Debt Statistics (PSDS) compilation and dissemination practices against each element of the Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) and presented a series of recommendations to improve the quality and transparency of the PSDS of Tanzania.

The report said a notable achievement in this regard is Tanzania’s successful integration of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s (CS Meridian) debt management system with its Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).

“Tanzania successfully interfaced the CS Meridian with the Integrated Financial Management Information System, becoming the first country to do so,” IMF said.

The Commonwealth Secretariat’s webbased debt management system (CS Meridian) is an online platform developed to help member countries manage their public debt effectively.

The platform provides governments with the tools to monitor, manage and analyse their national debt.

The system is designed to improve transparency and the ability to make informed decisions about borrowing and debt repayment.

The Commonwealth Secretariat is an intergovernmental organisation made up of 56 member countries.

IMF said the Debt Database Management Section of the Debt Management Division (DMD) in the Ministry of Finance has been modernised by implementing the Commonwealth Secretariat web-based debt management system (CS Meridian) in 2022/23.

The new system provided a platform to migrate and validate debt data against original contractual documents and reconcile the information with that held by creditors.

“Security measures and access control and audit features ensure that debt data is held securely and that data updates are appropriately managed and digitally integrated with other government data systems to increase efficiency and reduce the risk of human error during data entry,” the report shows.

IMF said: “with this major milestone accomplished,” the authorities are encouraged to focus effort in addressing remaining gaps.

The gaps are republishing historical series where the data have been corrected and revised, socialising a draft revision policy and leveraging the web-based features of the new debt system to expand the perimeter of government to local authorities and state-owned enterprises.

Moreover, the PSDS reports separately identify domestic and external debt based on the residency of the creditor and for individual loan is fully aligned with the statistical concept of residency.

In addition to the public debt reports, the Ministry of Finance’s Accountant General’s Division produces consolidated financial statements for the entire country public sector.

“These financial statements are audited and impressively consolidate financial statements from nearly 600 public entities, which make up the entirety of the Tanzanian public sector,” IMF said.

The accounting basis for PSDS in Tanzania broadly follows the requirements of the statistical standards but the valuation used is face value rather than the preferred nominal value.

Over the last decade, Tanzania has received significant technical assistance from the IMF’s statistics department on government finance statistics and PSDS.

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In similar development in Zambia, IMF said they discussed with various stakeholders as well as review of published data indicates that Lusaka’s public debt statistics have improved significantly in the last two years.

“The statistics are broadly reliable, transparent and of good quality, thanks to the strong and sustained commitment of the government to improve debt data transparency and accountability,” reads the report.

“However, many of the same users expressed frustration with the narrow focus of the current debt statistics, highlighting a need for information on local government debts, non-guaranteed debts of public corporations and a breakdown of domestic arrears by economic subsectors,” IMF report for Zambia shows.