Treasury tightens purse amid funds abuse

Some key Government ministries were starved of resources during the first half of the current fiscal year, figures from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development show.

This is despite evidence of poor service delivery by institutions under them.

In terms of budget performance, by mid-year, the Ministry of Finance should have distributed 50 percent of budget votes across all ministries, departments, and agencies.

However, the Treasury cited delays in the release of the funds to rampant mismanagement of public resources by some Government ministries and departments.

Lack of accountability on the disbursed public funds has also become a huge challenge.

According to the latest figures, several Government departments and line ministries utilised less than 50 percent of their allocations.

Of great concern are the Ministries of Health and Child Care and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which respectively, are failing to deliver basic health and meet foreign obligations, including staff salaries and accommodation costs for workers.

Ministry of Health spent 27 percent of its budget at a time service delivery at various state hospitals continues to deteriorate. Health workers in public institutions have on a number of occasions threatened to strike over poor working conditions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is pushing the re-engagement agenda only utilised 21 percent of the budget despite reports of poor working conditions by staff in foreign missions. The Ministry of National Housing and Amenities utilised only 24 percent while the Parliament of Zimbabwe spent 33 percent of its allocation.

“The under-utilisation of the funds is a great concern, especially in an inflationary environment and at a time when funding issues are blamed for affecting service delivery,” a Harare-based economist Carlos Tadya told Business Weekly.

“We have heard reports of poor working conditions in public hospitals which in certain instances led to workers downing tools, when the Ministry can just spend 27 percent. If you go to pharmacies at public hospitals, there are no drugs, health workers are working without proper protective gear; but the spending is just too low.”

Ironically, a few departments and ministries exceeded their 50 percent budget threshold.

These include the Office of the President and Cabinet (111 percent), Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (75 percent), Ministry of Lands,

Agriculture, Water, Fisheries, Climate and Rural Development (80 percent) and Defence and War Veterans (75 percent).

“The same departments and ministries were awarded massive supplementary budgets,” Professor Gift Mugano, a Harare-based economist told Business Weekly.

Finance ministry spokesperson Clive Mphambela said the Treasury only releases funds as and when the ministries, departments and agencies “execute their programmes.”

Multiple sources in the Treasury say there has been massive abuse of funds in some of the ministries and departments, which led to the Ministry withholding funding requests.

“We are having issues with a number of ministries, agencies and departments abusing public funds and some of these issues are being looked (into),” one source, who requested not to be identified citing protocol issues told Business Weekly.

Over the past few years, the state auditor has exposed mis-management of public funds by the ministries, government departments, agencies “and the Minister is tightening his purse,” another official in the ministry of finance told Business Weekly.

Mphambela could neither confirm nor deny the claims on abuse of funds by some ministries and government departments and agencies.-ebusinessweekly