Dar es Salam: Lack of funds is frustrating implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Parliament was told yesterday. Tanzania is amongst 26 African countries participating in the APRM, a self-auditing process, which focuses in good governance and democracy, among others.

The Mpanda Central MP on Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) ticket, Mr Said Amour Arfi, observed that the implementation of the process was halted due to the government's failure to remit funds. Mr Arfi was debating the Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation ministry's 2010/11 budget estimates tabled in Parliament yesterday.

Responding to the MP's observation, the minister for the ministry, Mr Bernard Membe, admitted that the country's APRM Secretariat delegation could not travel to South Africa to assess the country's report due to shortage of funds. "We hope the delegation will successfully travel to South Africa for the assessment this financial year," he said.

The MP, who serves as an APRM Governing Council member, said he feared the mechanism would fail altogether as a result of the government's plans to postpone the assessment process to April next year. "The money so far spent on the mechanism will all be lost. It hurts to note that Tanzania has failed to be assessed for three consecutive times while its neighbours have done a tremendous job," he said.

Had the APRM assessment been done, he said, the country would identify issues to address by the forthcoming government after the October General Election. The government rejected sourcing funds from donors to implement the assessment process for fear of external pressure. Mr Membe asked the august House to approve Sh112.3 billion budget estimates for his ministry this financial year of which Sh67.8 billion would be for recurrent expenditure and Sh44.5 billion for development expenditure.

The minister though said Sh1 billion would be set aside for the APRM implementation, Mr Arfi argued that the money was insufficient. "The APRM Secretariat, which owes various institutions a staggering Sh840 million, would not be able to use the remaining money to implement the process," he explained.

The Opposition MPs took the minister to task for the government's failure to allocate adequate funds for the project. "We see this as a wastage of public resources," said the Mji Mkongwe MP on Civic United Front (CUF) ticket, Mr Ibrahim Muhammad Sanya, accusing the government of deliberately undermining the APRM work previously done using the taxpayers' money. APRM is a brainchild of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).