Harare Bureau
The National Assembly yesterday passed the 2015 policy-driven National Budget following a week of debate on the fiscal policy presented by Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa in November. The budget is expected to be considered by the Senate at 10AM today.

The budget seeks to create an enabling environment that will promote meaningful partnerships between the government, the private sector and international investors.

During debate on Wednesday, Minister Chinamasa reiterated that the major emphasis was to grow the economy to ensure adequate allocations to various ministries and government departments.

During debate on the Appropriation Bill that sets Expenditure Estimates, most legislators complained that the money allocated to the ministries was inadequate and would derail efforts to turnaround the economy.

“Right across the board there’s underfunding and the 2015 budget is mainly policy implementation with the challenge being to grow the cake,” Minister Chinamasa said while responding to the debate.

Some of the policy issues announced in the budget include increased focus on confidence-building, retention of the multi-currency system, increased taxes on unprocessed diamonds and platinum, ban on exports of unrefined gold, formalisation of artisanal mining and clarification on the implementation of the indigenisation policy so that it becomes sector specific and reduce misconceptions about the programme.

The budget also seeks to recapitalise the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to the tune of between $150 million and $200 million using a loan guaranteed by Afreximbank by March 2015 as a way of restoring confidence in the financial markets.

At least $100 million will be mobilised to restart the interbank market, while $20 million will be sought to demonetise Zimbabwe dollar bank balances.

 

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