‘Mid-term budget must address issues affecting masses’

ANALYSTS have urged Finance minister Mthuli Ncube to focus on taxation and public service delivery in his 2022 mid-term budget review statement to be announced today.

Economist Victor Boroma said the review should deal with the decay in service delivery, especially the education and health sectors which are experiencing chaos.

“The most important aspect from the mid-term budget review will be to address public service delivery issues through fixing remuneration and working condition aspects decisively to the civil servants. Public service delivery is now so poor with education, health and policing deplorable due to poor remuneration,” Boroma said.

Another economist Prosper Chitambara said: “If we have a good healthcare system, then we will have a successful economy. The military budget must be reduced because we are not at war.”

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) said Ncube should place emphasis on social protection and introduce fair and just taxation that does not burden ordinary citizens.

“This must include coming up with complementary programmes like supporting livelihood activities in informal trading and enhancing investment in key social services like health and education,” Zimcodd said in a statement.

The debt watchdog urged Ncube to increase poor people’s incomes through cash pay-outs, and provision of food to the vulnerable, as well as revising downwards withholding tax, which was increased from 10% to 30%.

Social commentator Effie Ncube said the Treasury boss should announce measures that would stabilise prices, curb runaway inflation and foreign currency shortages.

Another analyst, Rejoice Ngwenya urged Ncube to curtail public expenditure, the main reason behind the increase in money supply.

“We also want to see the issue of capacity utilisation, local beneficiation being attended to. Mineral revenue is not being accounted for and we are too import-dependent,” he said.

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou said the education budget should be increased from 12% to 22% of the national budget as stipulated by the Dakar Convention.

“The current 12% allocation falls far short of a developmental education budget and does not provide enough leverage to restore the purchasing power parity of teachers’ salaries to US$540 at October 2018,” Zhou pointed out.-newsday