Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube last week rejected line ministries’ 2023 budget bids of $9 trillion, saying the proposed figures were three times what is available.
Professor Ncube said their requests can be granted only if the government was to borrow.
The minister told delegates including Parliament Speaker Jacob Mudenda that ministries lacked knowledge of the global strategy paper needed to be adopted when formulating national budgets.
He said bids were controlled by the economy’s performance (GDP figures) which is the guiding principle, NewZimbabwe.com reported.
Responding to contributions by ministries and MPs during the pre-budget seminar, Ncube advised government would not go beyond $3.4 trillion. He said:
The bids are three times what is available. The economy can only support about 17% of GDP and that percentage of the GDP transfers to about $3 trillion unless we borrow.
This then turns to be the ceiling for everything. As Treasury, we then try to come up with ceilings for various ministries, including Parliament.
We are an economy driven by a global figure which is driven by the capacity of the economy in the first place. In future, we will ask the MPs to assist us in advising the ministries of these ceilings.
We cannot go beyond the global envelope that is in the strategy global paper so $3,4 trillion is in the strategy budget paper. We beg for your support going forward in guiding the various ministries in terms of these ceilings.
Some of the bids that were drastically cut included:
1). The Defence ministry’s bid of $800 billion, was reduced to $226 billion.
2). The Sports ministry’s bid of $340 billion, was cut to $11.7 billion.
3). The Public Service ministry’s $657 billion bid was reduced to $87 billion.
4). The Higher and Tertiary Education ministry’s proposal of $176 billion was downsized to $99.4 billion.
Ncube was criticised by Members of Parliament for failing to disburse past budgetary allocations to the line ministries.