31 Aug 2020

The National Assembly, Nationality, Immigration, and Gender Affairs, Investment, Trade and Industry, Environment, Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism, Industrial Court and Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development are some of the ministries, departments and agencies that have not spent more than 50 per cent of their expenditure for 2017/2018.

Answering a parliamentary question recently, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr Thapelo Matsheka said for the financial year 2018/2019, those that did not spend most of their expenditure were Parliament, and Investment, Trade and Industry.

Dr Matsheka explained that the low expenditure was due to, among others, poor performance by contractors, which often resulted in litigation, especially for projects that were under the Economic Stimulus Package. Some were delayed by inclusion of projects in the budget before all necessary preparatory processes were complete, such as acquisition of land and defining the scope of the projects and capacity constraints in both government and the private sector.

Dr Matsheka further informed Parliament that a total development budget for the financial year 2017/2018 was P16.5 billion out of which P14.7 billion was spent, constituting an expenditure of 89 per cent.

For the financial year 2018/2019, Dr Matsheka said the total development budget was  P16.6 billion, out of which P15.4 billion was spent, constituting an expenditure of 93 per cent.

Nata-Gweta MP had asked the minister about ministries that did not spend most of their development budgets in the financial years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 and explain to Parliament the reasons for low expenduture.  Ends