By Daniel Chgiundu
Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development has come under fire for failing to submit the mandatory quarterly budget performance reports on time.
The Public Finance Management Act [Chapter 22:19] (PFMA) requires ministries to submit monthly and quarterly financial reports to Parliament.
For monthly reports, the ministries are required to submit them to Parliament within 30 days of the end of the respective month, while quarterly within 60 days of the end of the respective quarter.
The first quarter budget performance report was supposed to be submitted on the 31st of May 2024, as required in terms of Section 33(2) of the PFMA. However, the Ministry of Transport submitted it on the 11th of June.
While the Second quarter report was supposed to be submitted by 31 August, again the ministry missed the deadline only submitting it in the week of 9 to 13 September.
Answering questions in the Public Accounts Committee, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry Joy Makumbe blamed the introduction of the Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG) and the SADC Summit hosted in August as the bottlenecks for the delays.
‘’The ministry submitted the report on the 11th of June instead of 31 May because of the adoption of the new currency which required us as a ministry to reverse documents which were not given cash support and at the same time were also affecting our consumed budget of the first quarter.
‘’We got an instruction from the Ministry of Finance to reverse those documents which were not given cash support,’’ she said.
On the second quarter, the Perm Sec said ‘’So what I am getting from my team is that there was the issue of SADC.
‘’They are saying because of SADC there was pressure on them to deliver on the projects that were there and that is why they delayed in submission of the reports.
‘’…Going forth I will make sure that regarding the reports there is an improvement in submission of the report to the committee,’’ she said.
The reports from the ministries are critical as they help Parliament to provide oversight on how public resources are being used and also to quickly flag any issues before they escalate.
Already the Ministry of Transport is among government institutions that have overspent on their 2024 budget allocations.
According to the Midterm Budget statement, the ministry exceeded its budget by 244% as of June 30, 2024.
This development is going to force the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion to avail more funds using the unallocated funds.
