`Limited geological skills cause of throttled revenue`

Lack of enough geological engineers has been singled out as one of the major causes of loss to government revenues from investments in the mineral sector.

The observation was made by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Planning, Economy and Empowerment, Ambassador Charles Mutalemwa in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday.

The PS was speaking to reporters on the climax of, `World Day against Poverty,` marked on October 17 each year and whose theme this year is ``People Living in Poverty should be the Catalyst for Changes``.

Ambassador Mutalemwa said there might be cheating in mineral sector by dishonest investors which is cause for the government collecting less revenue.

``It happens when the dishonest investors give inaccurate figures of what is collected from the respective mines,`` said Mutalemwa.

Inaccurate figures are attributed to lack of enough geological engineers who can assist and tell the government what amount of minerals an investor is getting in a certain area.

``Knowing the amount of minerals obtained will help the government get its right share, and at the same time charge the investor accurate taxes.

He said cheating is common among African countries which are poor in the mining technology adding that it poses a big challenge to respective countries to recruit more geological graduates.

``This can not be avoided unless the country is self sufficient in geological engineers,`` commented the PS.

``I call upon pupils and students to study science subjects to become future engineers,`` he said.

He said that the world economy is run by technology which is a result of hard subjects like those of Science, and warned that the country will continue to face extreme poverty if students and pupils run away from them.

In the same event, the PS reported that the country has made commendable achievements in attaining National Growth and Poverty Alleviation Strategy (Mkukuta) goals which aim at creating people`s well-being through improved social services.

He said social services like education, health and supply of domestic water have improved in the last two years of Mkukuta implementation.

The three programmes that the government has embarked on in the course of implementing Mkukuta are the Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP), Property and Business Formalization Programme for Tanzania (Mkurabita) and Small Enterprises Loans Fund (SELF).