CONCERNS over underfunding of ministries have echoed in Parliament since the start of the 2026 budget discussions, with nearly all ministries lamenting shrinking allocations and delayed disbursements.
More revelations of underfunding emerged during the pre-budget seminar for 2026, themed Enhancing Drivers of Economic Growth and Transformation towards Vision 2030, in Bulawayo recently.
The Information Communication Technology (ICT) ministry warned that continued resource shortage risk derailing Zimbabwe’s digital transformation agenda.
Presenting her ministry’s 2026 budget overview, ICT minister Tatenda Mavetera said Treasury had allocated only ZiG$644 million against a bid of ZiG$10,7 billion, representing just 5,96% of the requested amount and 0,22% of the national budget, down from 0,31% of last year.
She said the ministry’s budget share had seen in steady decline despite the ICT sector contributing about 10% to GDP, warning that this would cripple innovation and stall key digital projects.
“The impact of the funding gap is going to stall our projects and cause a lot of delays,” Mavetera said.
“Delays in Zimbabwe’s participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution can limit innovation in governance, agriculture, and service delivery.”
Mavetera added that only 35% of the ministry’s allocation would go towards new projects, with 65% consumed by arrears, while less than half of last year’s allocation was disbursed.
She said that was already affecting flagship programmes such as the four-tier national data centre, the New City Data Centre and the national cybersecurity operations centre, all central to achieving a smart Zimbabwe under Vision 2030.
Despite the financial strain, the minister outlined the ministry’s 2026 focus areas, including the rollout of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, expansion of internet connectivity through the Presidential Internet Scheme, establishment of ICT labs in schools, telemedicine programmes and the creation of an ICT Fund to mobilise and manage sector financing.
“If we are to invest more in ICTs, this will create ease of doing business, increase productivity and build a knowledge-based society,” she said.
However, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube pushed back against claims of neglect, saying the ICT sector’s total funding extended well beyond the ministry’s allocation.
“What is being presented as ICT in this room is only a third of what’s happening across government,” Ncube said.
“The ICT portfolio is split among four institutions — the Ministry of ICT, the Office of the President and Cabinet, Higher Education and Home Affairs.”
He noted that the Office of the President and Cabinet’s ICT budget was three times larger than the ICT ministry’s and that key programmes such as Smart Agriculture and Smart Health were already being financed under other ministries.
Ncube said the real challenge was fragmented planning and duplication, not underfunding, urging a whole-of-government approach to digitalisation.
“If you gather information across the four ICT hubs, you’ll see a very different picture,” he said, calling for harmonisation and transparency across departments.
In its recommendations, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on ICT, Postal and Courier Services urged Treasury to increase allocations, ensure timely disbursement and centralise ICT budgeting and procurement to improve efficiency and accountability.
The recurring calls for adequate funding across ministries underscore Parliament’s growing concern that chronic budget shortfalls can slow down government service delivery and derail progress.
Senator Anna Shiri said there was deafening silence on disability, adding that their constituents were being left behind and the community information centres that the minister talked about had no accessible computers, no screen readers or applications for persons with disabilities.
“May you please include them. We will also include budget lines that will incorporate disability,” Shiri said.
“The budget strategy paper was clear on disability inclusion. Even the Honourable Speaker in his opening remarks speaks of being disability responsive.
“Can we also see it reflecting on the budget lines?”
Christopher Mutsvangwa, the Zanu PF spokesperson, said it was a good thing to ask for budgetary allocation.
“But what I just want to remind everybody here is that if you rely on budgetary allocation for the development of your IT industry, from that point in time onwards, because this industry is global, it is funded by the biggest companies, and it delivers the biggest companies in the world,” he said.
“The biggest company to reach five trillion capitalisation is NBT. It’s a high-tech company. So these are industries which are inherently profitable.
“They create businesses all over the world. What we actually need, beyond when we allocate a budget, is to find a way to create conditions for attracting private capital into that industry.”
Mutsvangwa said there was need to develop a steel skills industry “so that we produce well widgets [digital widgets that provide information, such as weather displays] for Toyota, for Mercedes-Benz, for what we can do that year. That is what is needed to take control, particularly for this city known as Bulawayo. It was an industrial city.”-newsda
