We cannot roll over budgets, it’s not allowed by law, says Mthuli Ncube
The Ministry of Finance has rejected calls from Senators to consider budget rollover due to delays in the disbursement of funds by the treasury.
Treasury has of late come under fire from Parliamentarians over delays in disbursing funds that would have been allocated in the budgets.
By Mid-2022, some ministries had only received about 35% of their budget allocations which reportedly affected their programing.
One such ministry is that of Health and Child Care which has failed to meet the basic requirements in terms of providing health care.
Responding to Senator Tichinani Mavetera who had asked whether it was possible to roll over the funds from the 2022 budget into 2023, Mthuli Ncube said the law does not allow it.
‘’On rolling over budgets, this one Senator, we cannot do that because you all know the laws that you passed here. I just came in as Minister four years ago and assumed the use of those laws that do not allow us to do that. So, every year is a new year.
‘’What we do is what we call zero budgeting. If you do not consume all your resources, they go back to Treasury, and the following year we start afresh. That is why even in the circulars where we ask the ministries to submit their bids and so forth, they start afresh.
‘’We do not say where were you last year as a Ministry. Let us just build from there. We start from zero and there are roll-overs that we do,’’ he said.
Several ministries and parastatals will fail to finish their 2022 budget allocations due to late disbursements of funds by treasury.
We cannot roll over budgets, it’s not allowed by law, says Mthuli Ncube
