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Minister Patrick Chinamasa

Harare Bureau
Parliament has passed the 2015 policy-driven National Budget following a week-long debate in both the National Assembly and the Senate.The Lower House debated the Bill since Tuesday before passing it on Thursday while the Upper House went through the whole process yesterday.

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 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.

But Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa reiterated that the major emphasis was to grow the economy to ensure adequate allocations to various ministries and government departments.

“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 during debate on Wednesday.

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

The majority of senators acknowledged the economic hardships that the country is facing, saying it was the reason ministries across the board were inadequately funded.

MDC-T senator for Manicaland Patrick Chitaka said while they sympathised with Minister Chinamasa for walking on a tight-rope, they least expected him to reduce Parliament’s budget to $19 million from last year’s allocation of $35 million.

Senators representing the Chief’s Council raised concern that their budget allocation through the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing was inadequate to cater for their needs, especially to replace the vehicles that they got in 2004.

Chief Charumbira and Chief Musarurwa said it was uncalled for to have traditional leaders go through the embarrassment of using public transport.  Chief Chiduku decried that traditional leaders had not received a salary increment in the last four years.

Zanu-PF Senator Alice Chimbudzi (Mashonaland Central) and MDC-T’s Sithembile Mlotshwa urged Treasury to allocate more resources to the Ministry of Defence and that of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. Chief Chisunga urged the government to lay off some workers from the Ministry of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, arguing that some of them were redundant while others were under qualified.

He said this would result in reduction of the government’s wage bill.