adminin store to improve livelihoods over the next 12 months.
Like everyone else, we do not expect anything less than a people’s budget with practical measures to expedite the economic turnaround initiative grounded on the key economic drivers agriculture and mining.
The prevailing challenging socio-economic environment has made, even the man in the street appreciate the impact the national budget has on his own domestic budget which is why Thursday afternoon all ears and eyes will be focused on Minister Biti and his magic briefcase.
We hope he will bear good tidings as the enormity of the challenges to be overcome necessitates a cocktail of measures to address the needs of every sector, which is why the challenge Minister Biti faces is an unenviable one.
We are, however, aware that it would be difficult for him to bring a cheer to everyone, but what we all expect is a budget that will bring meaningful change to livelihoods in the short to medium term. This means a budget that prioritises key economic drivers.
Minister Biti’s previous presentations have not given the agriculture sector its dues even though it has proven to be the fastest growing sector that, this preceding year, contributed over 33 percent to the Gross Domestic Product.
Surprisingly, it had to take a Cabinet ultimatum for Minister Biti to release money to buy inputs and to pay farmers for the maize they sold to the Grain Marketing Board. Part of the US$40 million that Cabinet ordered the minister to release, we were told, was given to the GMB, which has promised to start paying farmers.
We hope the minister learnt his lesson and will give agriculture pride of place.
With the presentation coinciding with the festive season, expectations are obviously high, especially among workers, that there would be considerable tax relief that would see disposable incomes firming appreciably.
Workers would want to see prices stabilising to cushion them from the dreaded “January disease”, the period of austerity that follows the opulence of Christmas festivities.
The biggest constituency of workers, the civil service, also expects measures that would not temporarily, but permanently lift them above the Poverty Datum Line.
To this end we hail the decision by the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme to allow diamonds from Chiadzwa on the international market without hindrance.
Diamond revenue should boost the fiscus that has been strangled by the effects of the western economic sanctions that continue curtailing the country’s access to the global financial system.
Industrialists, on the other hand, want answers to the perennial problem of the liquidity currency crunch that has seriously impacted on production and their capacity to give workers their dues.
Even those who are not gainfully employed look forward to prescriptions that would see them joining the ranks of the employed at the earliest possible time, and we hope the budget makes provisions for the empowerment fund to help indigenous Zimbabwe acquire equity in foreign owned firms.
The nation, thus, expects a range of measures that would foster economic growth, create employment, generate foreign currency and create the environment conducive to, and confidence essential for domestic and foreign investment. We are confident that such an environment can be achieved by a holistic package of fiscal and monetary policies.
And there is no better base than a comprehensive, inclusive people’s budget.
Online Reporter