Britain offers US $74-million debt relief package

Britain signed a US $74-million debt relief package with Tanzania on Friday. The deal was initialed in Dar es Salaam by Tanzanian Finance Minister Basil Mramba and his Tanzanian counterpart, Gordon Brown, who is on a weeklong tour of eastern and southern African countries. "We want developed nations to support developing countries like Tanzania," Brown had said at a reception on Thursday, after inspecting health and education programmes in the central region of Dodoma. Under the accord, Britain will pay 10 percent of Tanzania's debt service to multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Brown, who arrived in Tanzania from Kenya on Wednesday, also toured Tungi village on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, where he listened to residents who recounted scores of problems ranging from poor health facilities to bad roads and lack of teaching materials in schools. He said the level of poverty in many developing countries was unacceptable and appealed for the developed world to help poor nations in their bid to escape poverty. He said Britain's offer to Tanzania would be extended to other nations in Asia and South America, as long as they could assure that debt relief was used for poverty reduction. "At the G7 finance minister's meeting early next month we will examine the concrete proposals that could finally bring the sad chapter of these historic debts to a conclusion," Brown said. Debt relief extended to Tanzania and Mozambique had enabled the two countries to attain commendable strides towards poverty reduction, he said. Tanzania, he said, had been able to build 31,000 new classrooms, 1,000 new schools, recruit 18,000 teachers because of the $500 million debt relief received so far. "Tanzania is now set to achieve the goal of primary education for all by the end of 2005, nine years ahead earlier of the target set under the millennium development goals (MDGs)," he said. The MDGs are a set of eight development targets in the area of human welfare that nations are aiming to reach by 2015. In neighbouring Mozambique, Brown added, debt relief had resulted in $13.9 million being spent on health, while 500,000 children were now being vaccinated against tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria. He also said Mozambique was now spending $10 million annually on electrification of rural schools and hospitals, rebuilding infrastructure and that $3.2 million was being used to increase the number of girls attending schools. "When many developing countries are still choosing between servicing their debts and making investment in health, education and infrastructure, we know we must do more," he said.