Ministry Of Sport Faces Budget Shortfall With ZiG $888.3 Million Allocation
The Ministry of Sport, Recreation, Arts, and Culture has been allocated ZiG $888.3 million for 2025, a figure that, according to acting Permanent Secretary Eugenia Chidhakwa, is insufficient to fund its programmes, reported NewZimbabwe.com.
Chidhakwa revealed to the Parliamentary Committee on Sport that the Ministry had initially requested ZiG $2.2 billion, but was instead allocated just $888.3 million, leaving a significant shortfall of ZiG $1.3 billion.
She said the allocation would severely impact the Ministry’s ability to carry out its planned initiatives, as the funds will only cover salaries and operational costs. She said:
We were given $888,387,000, giving us a deficit of $1,337,880,840. Within the ministry, we are divided into three major programs.
The programmes are policy and administration; sport and recreation, promotion and development and the arts and culture promotion and development.
Our parastatals, which are the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC), the Zimbabwe National Boxing and Wrestling Control Board, the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe and the National Galleries of Zimbabwe have been given monies that will only cover their salaries and operations.
Nothing has been provided to our parastatals or projects and programmes, which then becomes a very big cause for concern because it means in 2025 they will not be able to implement their projects.
The sports was formed out of an existing Youth ministry and therefore still needs offices, equipment, and furniture among other things. Said Chidhakwa:
We also need to procure furniture, furniture which then covers our principals, our ministers, our deputy ministers as well as our permanent secretary and no amount has been allocated to that.
The ministry in its establishment has got provincial and district structures and you would recall, Honourable Chair, that we once used to work with the Ministry of Youth and it was then sports, arts and culture.
We are now a new ministry and then what it entails is that our provincial and district officers don’t have places that they are supposed to operate from because we are a new ministry, they also don’t have furniture and tools of trade, which to us are the integral part of our structure as a ministry.
So without the tools of trade and equipment, it becomes very difficult for them to be able to operate.
They have major events that they are supposed to be implementing both in the arts and sports and recreation as well as the arts and culture sector.So our budget falls very short of the activities that we are talking about.
Chidhakwa warned that the Ministry may fail to fulfil its corporate agreements with other countries in 2025 due to a shortage of funds. She said:
Furthermore, these activities we do with our parastatals. If the ministry falls short of the budget and our parastatals, if I have alluded, have not been given any budget allocation for the same programmes and the same projects it means we then have a very tall order in 2025 which we might fail to fulfil our corporate agreements within member countries.
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