The Party of National Unity (PNU) says austerity measures announced by government need to be supported by figures if they are to be meaningful.
PNU president Highvie Hamududu said the Minister of Finance cannot just announce the measures to address debt and fiscal challenges without stating what the amounts are.
Mr. Hamududu said without stating how much will be saved from the announced austerity measures the pronouncements by the Minister will remain mere flowery intentions on paper.
He told QTV News that his party is of the view that the Treasury must go further to indicate the exact amounts to be saved and where these savings will be applied.
Mr. Hamududu stated that it is also important for the Ministry of Finance to clearly indicate all expenditure realignments.
Below are some of the austere measures announced by Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe last month.
Revenue measures
- The ministry of finance wi?l ensure that there is strict adherence to the programmed domestic financing in the 2018 budget;
- The ministry of finance will compel fuel importers to make declaration of fuel imports at borders to curb the problem of smugglingof fuel;
- The ministry of transport and communication will expeditiously implement the telecommunication transactions monitoring system for mobile service providers;
- The ministries of finance and mines and minerals development will put in place legislative measures to introduce taxation on precious metal exports;
- The ministry of finance will introduce electronically verifiable tax stamps on high risk imports to address the problem of smuggling; and,
- The ministries of justice; finance, and lands will urgently resolve all land titling issues to ensure that the planned issuance of 300,000 land titles is attained.
Expenditure measures
- The ministry of finance will only fund projects that are at least 80 percent complete;
- In order to control the high expenditure on personal emoluments, recruitments will strictly be limited to the provisions of the 2018 budget;
- The management of the payroll will be moved to the ministry of finance by the end of june 2018 to ensure separation of duties in order to enhance the authenticity of entries on the payroll, address payment of wrong allowances and ghost workers;
- To cut down on the cost of running government by reducing expenditures related to both local and foreign travel, and workshops, the secretary to the cabinet has been directed by the president to immediately issue new travel guidelines that will reduce the number of travels and the size of delegations;
- The ministry of works and supply will finalize the policy on government vehicles with the view to have them disposed off. This will reduce expenditures on running the government fleet;
- The president has directed that a committee to crutinize the quality of expenditure in ministries should be set up under the ministry of finance.the committee will allow government to take remedial measures on unnecessary expenditures for the rest of 2018 and going forward.
- Electricity tariffs with independent power producers will be renegotiated to ensure that there is parity between the buying and sell prices by ZESCO;
- The industrial development corporation (idc) will implement the president’s long outstanding directive to relook at the portfolio of state owned companies to restructure the portfolio and bring in equity participation for those that are variable; and,
- The ministry of national development planning will establish a multi-sectoral public investment board to scruitnize capital expenditure requests prior to submitting to cabinet.
EL IS GETTING RICH WHILE YOU POOR ZAMBIANS NEED TO TITAN YOUR BELTS, MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS, HOW MANY YEARS NOW OF PF AND STILL NO SIGN OF GOOD THING PROMISED, MUTAWALI WILL MILK YOU DRY.
Zambians are a docile people..they dont mind!!
Meanwhile fotoz of Bo Given Lubinda at yesterday’s World Cup Finals have gone viral.
Austerity measures are NOT applicable to PF00Lish regime.
Soon Lungu will be jumping onto a plane to travel abroad with a huuuge delegation of cadres, playboy friends like Findlay, loose drunkard women like Dora, Mwanakatwe etc.
No wonder IMF does not want borrow the PF00Lish regime the $1.3 billion. Only a F00L can borrow someone who claims to have no food at home but he shops everyday at Harrolds.
You are asking too much of these lazy empty tins..already Lazy Lungu’s top ministers are in Beijing begging for more time and more money in exchange for slaves and natural resources.
Lazy bum insolent tribalist hooligan and bully and son of a polygamist father now leader of an online tribal pressure group has no clue that he is a TRIBALIST and promotes a TERRORIST Horganisation. He is high on HALLUCINOGENS!
An H-Empty tin makes the loudest noise.
The corrupt theives of pf running GRZ do no show figures incase some ones starts asking questions…..
HH is corrupt. He became rich through corruption and he is accumulating wealth and land through bribes of his Tonga chiefs. He is also a leader of a Terrorist Horganization.
Corrupt HH and friend to Chitalu? Privatisation thieves?
Sharon , sharon
Who is a fraud convict ?
A) lungu
B)HH
C) GBM
IF you get this right I will find a man for you…
ka sharon will NOT answer this clever multiple answer question, as its such a dull excuse for a human being,
I even bet even its education was achieved through leaked exam papers.
Ka sharon, tell us who the fraudster, infamous for embezzling a widows cash is.
VERY SHAMEFUL INDEED, that Gumu gumu’s like ka sharon know the truth, but will bury its head in its putrid @r2e.
This so called IDC by Sata has been a disaster, they are even too ashamed to publish the statements ..busy borrowing from ZCCM to fund loss making entities within the portfolio…we told you that it was another INDECO but they did not want to listen.
Is this a Para UPND organization? Anyway, he may be better than HH. He looks to be. UPND is a terrorist Horganization.
I expect they are ‘Working on it,’ if figures and plans are to be accurate they must be checked, cross checked over time.
Time to toughen up, tight belts all round. This was inevitable. Every 10 years you can expect a dip in Markets and world economy. Recession on way (last 2008), and USA Trade War on China and other Western countries will affect our relations with our friends. It’s not PF.
Figures will be cooked just to show measures are working just like cooking up figures of the external debt.
Forget those figures, these PF chaps will just cook up some numbers that don’t sense. As it is now they have failed to convince IMF who caught them pants down trying to minimize our debt.
Figures only become necessary where adoption of proposed measures depend on the same figures. For instance, in applying for a driving license, then age becomes a necessary figure. Similarly, in proving over-speeding, then the figure for speed limit is necessary. At this stage, a shortlist of budgetary lines where adjustments will lead to improved budget management is being announced. If the budgetary items do not make sense, then objections could be raised. Consequently, control measures for addressing expenses on ghost workers and abuse of GRZ vehicles depend on public support. The figures on savings will also follow but the principle needs public support first. Or are you saying policy measures are contradicting best practices of good budgeting?