Desist from rubber stamping budget proposals, Parly told

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
The Speaker of Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda yesterday urged parliamentarians to use their constitutionally prescribed oversight role on Government in the crafting of the 2016 National Budget saying they should desist from rubber stamping proposals made by Treasury. Advocate Mudenda said this during a pre-budget briefing for parliamentarians. “Section 305 of the Constitution compels the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to lay the National Budget before the National Assembly at the start of every financial year and that all withdrawals from the Consolidated Revenue Fund be authorised by Parliament.

“On the other hand, Section 299 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe mandates Parliament to monitor and oversee revenue expenditure by all Government institutions to ensure that all revenue and expenditure is accounted for. “Thus gone are the days in which Parliament’s role in the National Budget process was simply to rubber stamp fiscal policy and expenditure proposals by the Minister of Finance,” he said.

Advocate Mudenda said parliamentarians in their debate on the 2016 National Budget, should also proffer solutions on how the economy can be grow. “As MPs, you must come up with innovative ideas that will help the executive to come up with a budget that will create wealth,’ he said.

Chairperson of the Finance and Economic Development portfolio committee Cde David Chapfika said Zimbabweans wanted the 2016 budget to address needs in the health, education and energy sectors and also social programmes that will address the plight of vulnerable people.

“There were critical areas which came up (during public consultative meetings) and these areas include health, where people talked of re-tooling, increase availability of nurses, doctors and medicines while in the education sector most people want Government to ensure availability of qualified teachers, learning materials,” he said.

“On social services there were concerns that there is no anchor policy to support the disabled, the elderly and orphans. People felt there was no specific anchor through the budget to support such people.”

Cde Chapfika also said most people wanted Government to capitalise Agribank so that farmers could have a source of cheap financing. The public also wanted money collected by various Government agencies to be channelled to the Consolidated Revenue Fund to curb leakages. On local authorities, Cde Chapfika said Government was urged to provide five percent of the budget to local authorities as stipulated by the Constitution.

Parliamentarians and members of the Executive will meet in Victoria Falls next week for the 2016 pre-budget seminar.