11 Dec 2014

Parliament has approved finance and development planning minister’s request for over P2 billion supplementary budget.

Presenting
 the request on December 10, Mr Kenneth Matambo said over P1 billion
 will come from from the consolidated fund while the remainder will come from the development fund.

He indicated 
that nine ministries had submitted supplementary budget requests of over P1 billion
 from the consolidated fund out of which over P1 billion was being recommended for
approval for only eight organisations of expenditure.

Out of the
 requests recommended for approval, he said over P998 million or 90 per cent was
shared between three ministries of Education and Skills Development; Defence, Justice
and Security and Local Government and Rural Development.

He indicated 
that education ministry had requested an additional amount of over P5 million to meet
funding shortfalls in the departments of teaching service management and
tertiary education financing. He said as
 explained, the bulk of the funds would go towards meeting costs of training and
the four per cent salary adjustment.

Minister 
Matambo also said the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security had requested about
 P400 million to increase budget provision for the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) to
augment the personal emoluments vote to meet increase in expenditure arising
from introduction of new allowances and also the four per cent salary
adjustment both of which were approved during the course of the financial year.

He also
indicated that the additional funds would cater for the BDF operational needs
including maintenance of equipment, infrastructure and other recurring costs.

The minister
further noted that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development had
requested over P70 million to cater for increase in the destitute cash and World War
II veterans allowances and the old age pension which were effected during the
course of this year.

The
remaining funds of over P106 million or 10 per cent, he said would be shared among
five ministries.

The Ministry
of Transport and Communications had requested over P40 million to top up provision for
implementing the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB) new organisation
structure while the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs had requested
additional funds of over P10.5million to meet budgetary shortfall for the contract
obligations for the passport and border control computer system.

The ministry
of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism had requested P2 million for the anti-poaching
unit while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation had
requested P1million to restore the amount withdrawn from the contingency fund which
was used to provide humanitarian assistance to Sierra Leone, Liberia and
Guinea.

From the
development fund, Minister Matambo indicated that funds would be used on four
ongoing projects which include agricultural support schemes, secondary schools,
development of department of Wildlife and National Parks and the BDF.

The Ministry
of Agriculture, he said had requested an additional sum of about P500 million in the
2014/15 financial year to fund the agricultural support schemes programme, specifically
ISPAAD which he attributed to a decision which was taken to include other
packages which were not covered at the inception if the programme.

The packages
include individual fencing of fields in addition to cluster fencing, assistance
to horticulture farmers, inclusion of herbicides and the special ISPAAD package
for areas like Kgalagadi which are not suitable for arable production.

The ministry
of Education and Skills Development had urgently requested about P400m to
construct additional facilities and refurbish existing ones in order to address
shortage of accommodation for teachers, reduce congestion in classrooms and
address poor condition of schools infrastructure.

The initial
plan, the Minister said was that, the facilities would be completed by February
this year, but due to some delays at procurement stage, construction works
spilled over to 2014/15 financial year, thus rendering the budget provision
inadequate.

Further, Mr
Matambo informed parliament that there was escalation of poaching of high
profile species, which he said was new in the region. He said incidents of
poaching of elephants; rhinos and predators in the Chobe and Kgalagadi
districts where their populations were high had been observed with great
concern.

Thus, he
said it was in this regard that the annual provision for the department of Wildlife
and National Parks was being increased by P46m to procure specialised
equipment, light aircraft and construction of anti-poaching camps.

Parliament
also heard that the ministry of Defence, Justice and Security needed an
additional sum of over P400m in the annual budget and total estimated cost
under the BDF, the increase Mr Matambo explained was to improve the BDF’s
defence capabilities.

Nevertheless,
he emphasised that members had raised concerns that some of the requests did
not meet the criteria for supplementary funding because they appeared to be
budgetable items.

He thus
explained that ministries however indicated that they were limited by ceiling
constraints and so could not accommodate such requests within their budget.

He also
indicated that at the time of budget preparation, the budget was constrained by
resource availability or government’s affordability limit, hence the need for
ministries and departments to prioritise, improve expenditure management
including being disciplined in their spending.

Failure by
ministries or departments to communicate new policies and changes in them and
their financial implications during budget execution, he said also contributed
to the shortfall in budgetary provisions for some of them.

Minister
Matambo said despite such state of affairs, the ministry of Finance considered
that services had to continue to be provided to the people and as part of the
integrated public finance management reforms programme, they were leading the
effort to strengthen cost-benefits analysis and value for money assessments of
programs and initiatives. BOPA