Poverty study budget cut by 50pc over technology

Dar es Salaam. The government – through the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) - will spend Sh10 billion to conduct a countrywide Household Budget Survey (HBS) this year, thanks to a technical and financial support from the World Bank. The money is half of what the NBS spent during a similar exercise in 2011/2012, the NBS director general, Dr Albina Chuwa, said. The coming HBS will officially kick off in December. It seeks to identify poverty indicators for Tanzania mainland. The NBS has already received 500 tablets from the World Bank. The tablets will be used to collect data across all regions of Tanzania mainland. By using tablets instead of papers will reduce the expenses of the survey and save time. “We will no longer need to travel long distances from respective in the data collection process as we used to do in the past since data reports will be sent directly from respective areas using tablet devices,” said Dr Chuwa. It will also reduce the costs of transporting the papers, the workforce and printing that used to be the norm during previous surveys. The government is funding the project to the tune of Sh3 billion while the remaining Sh7 billion will be sourced from the World Bank and other non-bank global institutions. “I am confident that, by June next year, we will be in a position to provide the real situation of Tanzania’s poverty status in the Tanzania mainland,” she said, noting however that the full report will only be released December 2018. The study seeks to understand the real situation of poverty status among households in the country so as to help the government in implementing its development plans. A World Bank Senior Economist, Ms Nadia Bethaj said the institution has committed at Sh800 million to purchase the 500 tablets. 

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