Online Reporter
Sikhulekelani Moyo
Zimpapers Business Hub
BUDGET submissions from portfolio committees for the 2026 fiscal year have surged to ZiG783 billion, more than triple the ZiG231 billion allocation proposed by Treasury, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said.
He made this statement in his closing presentation at the recently held 2026 Pre-Budget Seminar in Bulawayo.
It is normal for bids each year to grossly exceed the amount of revenue likely to be available and one function of the Finance Ministry is to ensure that the total to be spent lies within the total that the taxpayers pay in.
The seminar, which ran under the theme “Enhancing drivers of economic growth and transformation towards Vision 2030”, saw different portfolio committees presenting their 2026 budget expectations, with the budget bids mostly exceeding the Treasury allocation.
In his presentation, Prof Ncube said if Treasury tried to get to ZiG783 billion, it would be beyond the capacity of its collection mechanisms.
“Treasury has set a ceiling of ZiG231 billion. This is what the economy, given our systems of revenue collection, can reasonably quantify. This is based on a revenue-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio of 16 percent,” said the Minister.
“We feel that if we try to get to ZiG783 billion, it is beyond the capacity of our collection mechanisms or economy to deliver on what the portfolio committees are looking for.
“This happens every year frankly. We have this challenge but we make every effort to ensure we focus on the critical areas in each ministry for each portfolio.”
Prof Ncube also mentioned that Treasury is facing challenges where ministries, departments and agencies are over-contracting without taking a second look at their budgets.
“Indeed the Government will include areas for goods and services and infrastructure projects. What we really face over the years is what we call over-contracting where ministries, departments and agencies have gone ahead to contract without taking a second look at their budgets and we find that they have over-contracted beyond their budgets,” he said.
Prof Ncube said because of the instability of the domestic currency, some contractors were overpricing, adding as much as double or three times the cost of goods and services to their bills.
“And this then created a huge gap because what it means is that our expenditures, our expenses, are being priced at the parallel rate,” he said.
“While we are receiving revenues at the official rate because as Government we are not violating the rule, we are not receiving revenues at the parallel rate we are at the official rate.
“So this automatically has created a gap over the last two years. With the stability of the ZiG, this should gradually disappear.”
The presentations from different ministries revealed that there is also slow disbursement of funds, which has seen them failing to deliver on their mandates.
