25 Mar 2013

Parliament has approved the revised Office of the President (OP) P1.57 billion budget proposal for the financial year 2013/14. 

The Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi presented the budget after amendments to the development estimates. He reduced the original budget proposal by P195 million. 

The amount was for the purchase of additional office space for the Ministry of State President, which reduced the development estimates to about P723 million. The recurrent estimates on the other hand remained unchanged at about P852 million. 

The 2013/14 development budget represents a 54 per cent increase from the P252 million given to OP in the previous financial year. 

Mr Masisi attributed the increase to the transfer of both the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS)  from the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security.

Out of the development budget requested, NACA will take the largest share of P241 million, followed by the DIS which will get P200 million. 

P180 million had been requested for the Poverty Eradication Programme and the remaining 14 per cent of the development estimates will be shared among the rest of the departments under OP.

The recurrent budget had increased by 55 per cent from last year’s figure of about about P302million, and Mr Masisi said this was due to the transfer of the DCEC and DIS to his ministry.

Mr Masisi thanked MPs for their cooperation in approving the budget of his ministry. 

He said slicing P195 million from the development budget did not mean that the projects it was intended for were not significant.

He said he would consider bringing back the project in future because it was important to increase office space for departments under the Ministry of State President. ENDS