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by the executive, but debate and critique the US$4 billion 2011-2012 national budget presented by Finance Minister Tendai Biti last week.
Chairman of the Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion, Cde Paddy Zhanda, said this at a post-budget workshop for legislators held in Harare yesterday.
“We must not rush to make this budget pass just for the sake of passing it. People want to hurry us but why the hurry?
“We as MPs must not be hurried, budgets must not just pass through Parliament but must be passed by Parliament,” he said.
Cde Zhanda said even the Public Finance Management Act allowed debate on the budget up to the end of next January so that legislators were given time to make their input into the proposals presented by Minister Biti.
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He said some of the issues that were not adequately captured in the policy include the policy of procurement, privatisation and the Constituency Development Fund.
“In Zimbabwe, we have high unemployment and low liquidity but we continue to have outflows of capital, we have companies from abroad that come in, bring their own employees and take the money out.
“The tender process is not transparent at all,” he said.
Cde Zhanda said an example was a Chinese company that had been awarded a tender to dig trenches at Mtshabezi to supply water to Bulawayo.
Cde Zhanda said the issue on privatisation and commercialisation of loss making parastatals had been on the table for a long time with very little being done to improve operations of the companies that have been blamed for draining the fiscus.
He said Minister Biti should have allocated more resources to the Constituency Development Fund since it was the only conduit he had to allocate funds for capital projects.
“The CDF is the only way we can equitably distribute capital in the country, a large chunk should have gone towards that because that is the only tangible way to construct schools, clinics and roads in our communities,” he said.
Minister Biti allocated US$8 million for CDF this year.
The CDF was introduced last year to assist legislators carry out development projects in their constituencies.
At least 15 MPs have been accused of misusing the US$50 000 each they were allocated under last year’s budget.
Online Reporter