Conservation entities in Tanzania gearing for improved services having allowed to retain funds

Conservation entities and tourism stakeholders are heaving a sigh of relief following the recent financial bill amendment which now allows them to retain more than 50 percent of their generated funds.

Amending the clause to allow National Parks and Game Reserves to retain 51 percent of the monies, the Tanzanian Government has partly restored the financial autonomy for the conservation institutions, giving them more muscle to tackle important duties in the rather sensitive sector.

According to experts, the development now empowers the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA) and the Tanzania Forestry Services (TFS) to execute their duties and mandates smoothly without being hampered by shortages of funds.

“Conservation is a very sensitive and dynamic sector which requires close attention and rapid response wherever the situation calls for it,” said the Executive Officer of the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO) Elirehema Maturo, explaining that tasks like road construction in parks, rescue services and anti-poaching response will now be executed freely.

“There are some emergencies like the occurrence of natural calamities, such as bush fires, these cannot wait for money from treasury, teams need to be deployed to the sites to tackle them immediately,” Maturo maintained.

He however cautioned that, getting funds is one thing but using them properly was another, therefore the conservators should make sure that this time the money does as being expected.

Presenting the national fiscal year budget 2025/2026 the finance minister, Mwigulu Nchemba said the four conservation entities will now be allowed to keep 51 percent of their collections to cater for their respective activities and only remit 49 percent to the state coffers.

Earlier, the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Pindi Chana during her budget speech at the National Assembly in Dodoma also assured that conservation entities will now be allowed to make use of their own collected funds to attend important functions of their mandates.

Previously, the institutions were being subjected to remit their entire collection to the treasury and then required to submit proposals in request for funds to cover their Operation Costs (OC).

And even that was pending consideration or reviews from the central government agencies.

Usually, the funds would either be delayed, refused or partly paid, rendering operations to be difficult, especially during emergency procedures, such as repairing roads damaged by rains, tackling bush fires, making remote rescue services or attending to poaching crises in the wild.

Wildlife and tourism stakeholders have always been sceptical about the previous decision to abolish retention of funds, collected by wildlife conservation institutions, forcing the entities to pool the same into consolidated state coffers.

Much of the monies from tourism and conservation would also be appropriated by the government to other uses leaving crucial tasks in parks and game reserves, wanting.

For observers, this previous arrangement would have destroyed the wildlife parks.

The previous fifth phase government announced through the parliament a plan to abolish the retention scheme which allowed public institutions to bank the operational funds for their own spending.

All public institutions, including the national parks, were required to submit all earnings, including park and concession fees collections to the treasury for retention under the central government control.

Being cash constrained, the national parks and wild game reserves were failing to execute their duties for lack of adequate funding.

Tanzania’s government had earlier allowed the wildlife conservation institutions to spend their own generated funds for strengthening anti-poaching operations.

But when that was abolished, various stakeholders including members of parliament warned the government over consequences of its own decision, saying it was a situation that would kill the tourist parks through the lack of adequate funds for protecting the wildlife.

In Tanzania, all wildlife parks are managed by the government through the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism but are operating freely through collection of park entry fees collected from visitors, concessions, hunting and other fees remitted by visitors and companies operating inside the parks.

Tanzania National Parks is the leading and biggest wildlife conservation institution, commanding and managing 21 parks, which stand as the leading tourist attraction and the source of tourist revenues approaching USD 3.5 billion from an average of 5 million tourists.