Treasury boss Mthuli Ncube on Thursday tabled a ZWL$4.5 trillion 2023 budget against ZWL$8.7 bids from ministries and government departments.
Addressing parliamentarians at the new Parliament building in Mt Hampden, near Harare, Ncube said ministries knew the budget funding ceiling but chose to ignore it.
He urged ministries to not only adhere to the Budget Strategy Paper and Budget Call Circular but to also prioritise their programmes. He said:
During the budget formulation processes, line Ministries submitted total bids of over ZWL$8.7 trillion, more than double the available envelope, presenting an allocation challenge.
This notwithstanding, a Budget Strategy Paper and Budget Call Circular with indicative ceilings for each MDA and an overall indicative available revenue collection of ZWL$3.4 trillion.
Going forward, line Ministries are required to adhere to BSP and Budget Call Circulars ceilings when formulating expenditure proposals.
This requires line Ministries to rigorously prioritise their projects and programmes.
Ncube said the bulk of the funds in the 2023 budget has been allocated to ministries and independent Commissions. He said:
With regards to 2023 Budget Vote allocations, line Ministries and Independent Commissions have been allocated a total of ZWL$3.7 trillion, whilst Constitutional and Statutory Appropriation have been allocated ZWL$532.6 billion and loan repayments ZWL$248.6 billion bringing the total Budget to ZWL$4.5 trillion.
Ncube allocated only 18.5% of the budget to the educator sector which is lower than the 20% stipulated in the Dakar Declaration on Education. | OpenParly