20 Dec 2019

Parliament has passed supplementary fund estimates of the sum of over P1billon from consolidated funds to finance unforeseen expenditure of salary adjustments.

When presenting the Bill, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka said the request was within the confines of the law and was intended to achieve financial prudence.

He said supplementary estimates of expenditure were prepared under the authority conferred upon the minister responsible for finance by Section 119 (3) (a) of the Constitution and the requirements of the Presidential Directive CAB.1/99 which guides assessing requests for supplementary budget estimates.

“All the supplementary budget requests contained in the Financial Paper No.2 of 2019/2020 were unforeseen and have been considered in terms of the aforementioned Directive,” he said.

He further stated that supplementary budget requests were considered under exceptional circumstances such as the aforementioned.

Initially, the minister had requested that the money be sought from savings from low spending projects funded under Development Fund to finance the Consolidated Fund Supplementary Estimates requests. The request was however not acceded to by legislators who were not receptive to the idea of using money allocated for development projects.

Dr Matsheka who later withdrew the motion to use money allocated for developments had reasoned that given the increasingly constrained fiscal space, the ministry assessed and identified areas of possible savings from low spending projects funded under Development Fund to finance the Consolidated Fund Supplementary Estimates requests.

He said it was considered prudent to reallocate the unspent budget balances rather than seek additional funds that were bound to increase the projected fiscal deficit.

Mr Matsheka said in view of the sizeable amount of money left unspent at Ministry of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, it was proposed that money be reallocated to finance unforeseen expenditure because the ministry would not fully utilize their approved budget for the year 2019/2020.

He clarified that even though the request was legal and in compliance with financial prudence, he decided that the matter be revised and resubmitted following members advice and that of the Attorney General.

This, he said was done following a consultative process at the general assembly to deliberate on the matter as to how to finance emerging needs in the recurrent budget.

“I would like to state that government is known for adherence to the rule of law,” he stated.

The shortage was caused by increases to staff salaries which were affected by the 10 per cent, 6 per cent and 4 per cent salary adjustments, adjustment to allowances and pension contributions, for Ward/Village/Umbrella Development Committees’ allowances Committees’ which were increased by P50 per beneficiary, while social protection allowances namely; Destitute Allowance, Disability Allowance and Old Age Pension Scheme, the increases were P50 per beneficiary per month for the first two (2) allowances and P100 per beneficiary per month for Old Age Pension Scheme. BOPA Okaile Lo (20/12/2019)