Mthuli Ncube under fire: why do you disburse funds to ministries late?
Norton legislator Temba Mliswa has taken the Ministry of Finance to task over the late disbursement of funds that would have been allocated in the budget.
Most government departments and ministries have had to park some of their programs and activities due to late disbursement of funds.
Ministries such as that of Health and Child Care have not been spared which has affected the delivery of quality healthcare in the country.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Honourable Mliswa said money to fund critical services is disbursed late and yet money to for corrupt activities is never delayed.
‘’This is a very important question which touches on the entire country from a budgetary point of view. This question must be directed to the Minister of Finance as to why the Ministry disburses funds late.
‘’That is the whole essence of it; we can dodge around and say a lot, we pass the budget here and this august House does it timeously burning midnight candles but the money is disbursed late.
‘’I think if the Ministry of Finance can respond to that because that is Treasury but when it comes to money for corrupt activities like devolution, fire tenders, the money is released quickly yet for what you have budgeted for, it is not released.
‘’For us to get proper answers, may this question be directed to the Minister of Finance? Why does the Ministry disburse money late? How come there is no supplementary budget which comes in, in spite of the inflation because there is no way you can run this economy by not having a supplementary budget when there is inflation.
‘’You will be totally crazy to think that the money we pass here and the inflation which is rising would sustain any Ministry and the economy is totally wrong from a mathematical point of view and economic point of view.
‘’So, what sort of economics are you doing when prices are going up, yet you are not adjusting and not coming up with a supplementary budget? That is why it should go to the Ministry of Finance, ndovanehomwe yacho ava,’’ he said.
Responding to Honourable Mliswa, the Deputy Minister of Finance Clemence Chiduwa said they only release funds if there is a request from ministries.
‘’With regards to how the funds are released, we first of all deal with a request which is coming from the responsible Ministry. After the request, we do a budget release and when the budget release is done, we do a pay run and when the pay run is done then we do cash release.
‘’We can only do the budget release when there is a request. Why is it like that – it is because as a government, the moment we are running a cash budget we only release when there is cash.
‘’So if there are any late disbursements, it is probably because of the way we are managing our expenditures. We only eat what we harvest, this is where we are.
‘’What I stated is that the standard budgetary process, and even if the budget has been released and approved here in Parliament, we only release upon request. If specific ministries and departments do not request their budgets, we are not going to release. The release is based on request, I submit,’’ he said.
Mthuli Ncube under fire: why do you disburse funds to ministries late?
