Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda has unveiled a K42.68 billion national budget for 2014 representing 30.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Presenting the budget in Parliament this afternoon Mr Chikwanda said the 2014 budget will be financed through domestic revenues of K29.54 billion as well as grants of K2.63 billion from cooperating partners.
Mr Chikwanda said that the balance of K10.5 billion will be met through foreign and domestic borrowing.
He has also proposed a two year wage freeze on public service salaries and deferred new recruitments to 2015. Mr Chikwanda said the freeze was meant to create fiscal space for the provision of basic social services and reduce money spent on the public service wage bill.
He said in the next two years the Government would concentrate on addressing structural anomalies in the remuneration structure.
“In order to provide sufficient fiscal space for the provision of basic social services and investment in public infrastructure, and reduce the proportion of revenues spent on the public service wage bill, I propose a two-year public sector wage freeze,” he said.
The public service wage bill was projected to be at 52.5 percent in 2014. Mr Chikwanda said in order to stop distortions in the public sector payment system, Government had adopted a 10-year integrated competitive total remuneration strategy aimed at harmonising pay for similar positions across the three arms of government.
He said the strategy also entailed a review of public pensions, enhancement to the Public Service Performance Management System and creation of a public service credit union.
He said there would be changes to the Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF) in which the retirement age and the basis for calculating pensionable emoluments would be revised.
The minister also said the government had embarked on a programme to strengthen cash management by addressing the challenges associated with large unutilised balances because keeping funds idle denied resources from programmes that required funding.
And Mr Chikwanda has said that as a demonstration of government’s commitment of putting more money in people’s pockets, he has proposed to increase the current exempt threshold of Pay As You Earn by more than 36% from K2,200 to K3,000 per month.
He said that the measure is expected to result in revenue loss of K956.6 million. The Finance Minister has also proposed to increase exercise duty on airtime from 10 percent to 15 percent.
He further proposed to revoke the statutory instrument that suspended excise duty on clear beer so that the substantive duty rate of 60% is once again effective.
Mr Chikwanda said the revenue gain from the measures is K514.8 million.
He also proposed to increase the property transfer tax rate from the current 5 percent to 10 percent, a measure expected to generate an additional K100 million.
Mr Chikwanda has also proposed to spend 9.9 percent of the Budget, or K4.23 billion on health services in 2014.
He said that K245.7 million is provided for the construction and rehabilitation of hospitals, health centres, training schools and the upgrading of tertiary health care.
He also increased by 24.3 percent the budget towards the purchase of essential drugs and medical supplies to K738.7 million from K594.1 million in 2013 and allocated a further K66.6 million towards medical equipment including specialized equipment.
Mr Chikwanda has also proposed to spend K8.61 billion or 20.2 percent of the budget on education.
He says of the total amount to allocated to the education sector, K1.28 billion will go towards the construction of education infrastructure which will include 53 new secondary schools and the upgrading of 220 basic schools into secondary schools.
You can download the full budge speech below
This is a waste of time as ukwa will just be waking up and create new districts in muchinga and hallucinations about creating universities etc.
I regret having voted for Sata. Do these guys have an idea of what they are doing in offices apart from giving jobs to their Bemba fily tree oh sorry It’s a Bemba Amazonian forest. You put a wage freeze and unemployment . Firs of all u failed to creat jobs now this. RB had only 5 ministers from eastern Yet Sata called him a tribalist ati Akumawa. But he Sata 86% of his cabinet and foreign missions are packed with Bembas. Why such a curse From heaven be pressed on mother zambia to have such a calamity
You can tell that the budget is a disorganized mess just by the way Chikwanda’s family is dressed. No coordination whatsover!
I heard the budget speech, and I don’t that Minister of Zambia, Chikwanda. The position which fits him is Republican President, then Sata as minister of a disastrous Finance.
Yaba chitata eci nachilaba ko ukubika umuzulo wama byelections
Ba Pharmaceutical Failures (PF) how many bi elections are going to have this year.
There you go !
More mahney in the pogcketi !!
Nubian Princess @ 1.2, Apa I disagree with You .
The Family especially the Lady & her Girl’s are dressed appropriately, in Beautiful African attire, fit for such an occasion. Ku Budget kweve kaya??
Only time will tell.
But I like the wage freeze timing. Atleast after 2 years of wage freeze, our civil servants will be awarded a sharp increment thereby prompting them to vote for PF once more.
This is good thinking Mr Chikwanda, and I hope you are doing all this in good faith and patriotically. Any way, whatsoever your intention, you were honest with your “donchi kubeba” slogan.
Exactly all those who got a salary increase of k3000 will be back to square one as though there was no increase at all. Its case of give with one hand and take with another.
Are sure with your comments or you are dreaming? Don’t critical on straight forward issues. If you have not done simple micro economics let experts interpret in simple terms for you. Its a gain for your own inform by K800.00.
@choolwe,
please stop arguing with these good for nothing….
its a sheer waste of time.
Spot on Choolwe.I like your kind.This is the level of reasoning we need on this blog.Not some of these bubblegum brains i see here.
”Chikwanda proposed a two year wage freeze on public service salaries and deferred new recruitments to 2015”..is this a gvnmnt shut down??
@Wanzelu, to make the Saulosi or Choolwe understand is like this:
PF caused an erection on salary, but that erection will be hard only for next 2 years. And then wages will fall or soften, then PF will then rethink if to raise it up again or just leave it shrink. = Wage freeze!!
@CHOOLWE…the increment is only k200 in terms of the relief received by those who get paid atleast K3000….here is how…if you work for me now and i pay you k3000,your tax is k200…so your net pay is K2800.when this new change becomes effective,this tax will not be applicable because K3000 will be the new tax free amount…K800 is simply the difference between the old threshold and the new one and not the money you will save in taxes.hope this helpd
Wage freeze,iye imwee
Dementia at work again….
The minister also said the government had embarked on a programme to strengthen cash management by addressing the challenges associated with large unutilised balances because keeping funds idle denied resources from programmes that required funding.
Mr. Minister sir, it was nice to see you in Parliament today. A growth oriented budget. Well done sir.
Cash management will release a minimum of K4 trillion. Start it with Finance Bank and Investrust Bank. These two banks have corrupted our civil servants, Revenue authorities, Zesco and other parastatals who keep millions of Kwacha with them while the government has to borrow and pay hefty interest.
How much money are you proposing be got from ZRA and Zesco. Remember Zesco must expand it sources of power so that you stop having those load sheddings. Zra will need to broaden its collections. Whats your take?
Lmao these clowns yaba can a normal guy come up with crap like that now the whole nation know at retards at work
Good budget.
More money in employees’ pockets.
which employees pocket. havent you read that there will be wage freeze for two years. maybe you dont understand it. This gov of clowns is just something else mwe
Did you people expect a miracle? First and foremost.. this is in order considering Zambia has so much debt to pay back, as in both old and new. I just feel for the masses especialy those with lower wages for things are surely looking grim next year, this is just a beginning, i cant even look through in to next year, the foundation is not shaping up, expect more riots, crime, political upheavals as in water being poured on fuel, prices of basic foods will fly high. I really cant go there for its not looking good, remember not just Zambia, it is Global people, so dont expect Aid to come calling, Debts will be doubled, oh no…. i feel sorry for these law makers, they see more than we do, it must be painful to know the truth and not able to tell it as it is for fear of Alarming.
cindy,
its not law makers as you put it,
its liar makers these lawyers oh! sorry liars..
@ Mature,
I wonder why they always opt not to tell the truth, it would be easy for them and in the long run, people would know what to expect as they would know the truth. It’s so simple better give me the bitter pill first so i can get over with it, than smear me with a pinch of ice cream and later take it away, cook up more stories for an excuse and then later on admit that it was infact a bitter pill you had but were afraid of my reaction. I mean, i dont get it tell the truth, atleast thats what the government does here, so that even when they introduce new taxes, people know why, nowonder we are still lacking behind, i hope change is coming as in laying the book open. People need to change aswell, things are hard, no handouts for anything, did i mention that life is not for free?
Cindy kanshi walikwata amano sana ayi ? Now i have seen it.Way to go mama.
@Cindy, wangufwisha bwiino mwandi. Hope these politicians can read this blog post. Nombafye, taboonfwa ba mambala!
@cindy,i greately respect you,but I’d urge you to look at the budget holistically. Otherwise as I can see from a lot of comments here we are a long way as a nation to understanding national issues which in itself is a danger to development as there is a lot of misunderstanding of issues and facts, some deliberately, others because of illiteracy, others because of their political inclinations…. I don’t know, superficial perhaps, is the correct definition, of what kind of people, we are….again,i respect u….Thanks.
Thank you guys,
Lets hope atleast even Chellar reads our posts, maybe just maybe he can pass our messages on to his boss and colleagues.
Don’t be so pessimistic? We have had a wage freeze before when Late LPM was President. I am sure somehow somewere everything will be alright.
just downloaded the speech, comments later
After ,the mishap with increaments . Now its wage freeze.
ninshi iwe ulefwaya ulefolafye endless?
Haleisa Halelanda hahahahahahahaha awe mwe hahahahahahahahaha
How much has been allocated to By-elections? We want to keep track of that spending so we know when there is a budget overrun in the elections allocation!
you should have said:-
‘how much has been allocated for by elections against those mps corruptly in parliament’?
this budget is hollow, it lucks stinger concepts required to spur growth. development projects such as roads and universities were concentrated in his village province, where there is absolutely no economic value to warrant the decisions. yaaba, two year wage freeze for public service workers? we certainly need a fresh crop of leaders, not this recycled chikwanda with 1956 economic concepts
pls b4u give any coment take time to read and get the real pic
niinshi imwe nimwe mukwete real picture!?
Opposition as usual. Even were you dont have anything to say.
These billions that you reporters are quoting are they rebased or Previous Kwacha. Make it clear to your readers
spot on on education and health, but get modern school and hospital structure than the types of high school and district plan in present Zambia….
Wage freeze till 2015,after that increament,too induce ill informed Civil Servants and those to employed as teachers,nurses and other victims,so that cum 2016 the vote for the…
Sounds good so far.But i will make my informed comment after reading the full budget speech.
Yaba no running back to Zed next year to get that university job because of the no recruitment and wage freeze.Anyway will just continue to stay here twalibelela.Lol
Zambians can sacrifice or have no choice to be honest and the idea sounds magic but implementation in Zambia doesn’t go as on paper.
wage freeze for two tears is a joke….civil servants just received their new salaries this month and the agreement is expiring in january 2014,and what abt us health workers who just received 4%…govt shd abreast itself for mass strikes next year
Iwe ninshi you think impiya shikafuma kwi?
These are hard times.
minister are being advised by HE to force people understand the budget not to just be swallowing Manzi in parley
Have u seen what demons can do to a gullible minds?lt makes them against anything human.lt makes u look a fo ol .
Not again. piliz
Government will not employ or increase your salaries for the next 2 years! Enjoy!
Government will not employ or increase your salaries for the next 2 years! I hope the swearing-ins at state house have also been frozen!
So paging will no longer be a crime kaili airtime will shoot up. !
l ment, “to gullible minds.”
Just give us our money those of us that are in the Diaspora, we are barely surviving..and may I just say that ba PF ma *****s
Thats equivalent to a $8bn budget .I guess we ain’t too badly off bcoz our budget used to look like peanuts compared to Tz ,Angola and Kenya’s budgets.
Don’t they have like 43 to 50 million people in Kenya? Zambia 13 million only. Angola has oil and no Kapoko.
Yes but kenya is only 1/3 arable,has no minerals and has lots of uneducated /unproductive nomads.So ,mwanawakwitu,whats our excuse in zambia bcoz with all those handicaps kenya still puts us to shame in quite a few areas.
How much is in for link zambia 2000. I cant see the figure. Hope you dont leave us in debt trap thru external borrowin. And how will you finance lusaka city remodellin. Tell your president to hold a press conf. We need ask certain issues.
Ba Octopus, what has all this got to do with a tribe? It is disgusting that you drag tribalism into this. Our generation shouldn’t be talking about tribalism but helping out resolve issues facing the nation. Promote a ONE ZAMBIA ONE NATION and not tribalism for God’s sake.
Let’s face it octopus is right if we don’t point out the tribalism in sata genes PF may sow a seed that we will never be able to weed off. Sata is the most tribalist president ever. I hope he freezes swearing in relatives next year
It’s unbelievable that some Zambians still believe anything this PF government says. These guys have not kept a single promise in the two years they have been in power. The so called man of action has proven to be a man of absolutely no action at all and not an iota of an idea as to which direction to steer Zambia. This budget is bufi!
All You are is rubbish,work hard & b innovative
Ba Nubian Princess, why get personal? The dressing is good, unless u have no sense of creativity. The theme now is colour mix. Putting people down is a sign of insecurity. Discuss the budget, like every other intelligent contributor. Is your family better dressed? Not from we saw.
Start fish farming, b innovative dnt wait 4 govt 2 employ u. There is nothing wrong in building universities in ones home area thats development,the whole is under dvelopd so 1 shud start frm somewhere.
‘… I propose a two-year public sector salary/wage moratorium and to defer new recruitments to 2015.” what does this statement mean – English please before we misquote.
no need to blame sata, but ourselves.
Chikwanda May I suggest we do the wedge freeze from 2015-2016
Year during elections plz
Frankly, this is a GREAT budget – very intelligently put together, very well thought out. As long as we don’t get too many unexpected expenditures next year, Zambia is geared to significantly improve economically from next year. Like I always say, there are brains in PF and their policies, in my view, have been the most sophisticated since we got multiparty democracy, and when these policies start producing results Zambia will be sky high. As I always say, right now things might be looking tough, but give it two years: I have no doubt the opposition parties will have a tough time to unsit this PF in 2016 and they even know it deep down. 2016 is still far. The biggest enemy to PF not winning elections in 2016 can only be PF itself, if they don’t deal with internal wrangles properly.
More money to be wasted on by elections and a trillion deputy minister with a dash of countless new districts.
Advice to His Excellency, call for fresh parliamentary elections to weed out corrupt MPs. Elections can be held in stages. Every week 25 elections are held. It will take 6 weeks to have a new parliament that will meet the aspirations and development needs of the voters. It will work out cheaper than to have 3-4 elections every two months and the country in elections mood and mode throughout the year.
Get done and over.
2yr wage freez.!eyeee.!
Who us going to work in these schools and hospitals if there will be no recruitment in public service Mr Minister?
K10.5 billion worth of foreign and domestic borrowing is nothing but unforgivable plain stupidity. Chikwanda, Sata and GBM are collectively pushing a monumental 200 years on earth and it is sickening that they can embark on such a wicked borrowing spree to burden future generations with such a debt burden. Maybe we should just federalize or dissolve this disastrous venture called Zambia, it is a failed enterprise.
Exactly my thoughts…20% of the budget is on borrowed money. I thought he told Zambians there is enough money in the system to carry -out the various projects.
Iwe sela tobombeko!!
Good evening
It is not often that I read through a budget but in this case, I even went over it twice because it is quite clear and easy to follow.
I wish the minister could also give us an overview of the money accrued from investments in the mining sector, copper sales in particular. After reading an article on Kwame Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana’s economy, I was truly inspired.
By creating a national sovereign fund, we would be able to transfer the full value of our resources into cash, not only to save wealth for our future generations but also to avoid current foreign and domestic borrowing. That’s my proposal.
He has also proposed a two year wage freeze on public service salaries and deferred new recruitments to 2015. Mr Chikwanda said the freeze was meant to create fiscal space for the provision of basic social services and reduce money spent on the public service wage bill.
My foot, NO DOUBT Countrywide strikes here we come this Kolwestan Govt has failed Zambians. Am some how happy because people thought Panga wielding thugs can run this country without intellectuals. The proposal for minimum qualification for a president still stand. It is only Zambia where Grade four drop outs can still ascend to highest office. May God salvage our Country from these Monkeys
Stop telling lies u chi demon above! U must be strong in 2016 for yo amaturish have nothing that can convince noble minds .Yo tribal and wrong accusation of failure by pf compaigns are not taking u anywhere.Bravo, Mr Chikwanda!
the budget is elaborate, grz freezes the wages for two years whilst giving a pay rise of 800 in this two years in paye. it as well considers raising some funds from clear beer. to say the truth this budget is good and exceptional. this kolwestan govt is a thinking govt kansh.
Taking a glimpse of the 2014 budget, I notice that we; as of September have reserves worth $2.7billion, and some of our microeconomic objectives are to: limit domestic borrowing to 2.5% of GDP and contain overall deficit to no more than 6.6% of GDP and to increase international reserves to over 3 months of import cover. What baffles me the most is the contradiction of us having $2.7billion and sill have a budget overran or is it deficit of up to 8.5% of our GDP? In terms of borrowing, we have always advocated that; parliament gives the final go ahead in order to scrutinise the relevance of these reckless borrowings which has pushed our debt burden to over $3billion dollars taking us back to levels were we were forgiven. Now a wage freeze for two years? This is pathetic and clearly shows…
The real problem with us Zambians is that those who DON’T care about our beloved country are majority. We all kno the challenges we face.. it will b very helpful to provide answers unlike tryn hard to prove your “paper ” based success.
Thr more “kabovas” who hav added mo value to Zambia thn most of the so called “elite” who are amazing employees (nokulashupa ba maid pali k500 salary) instead of bn employer of those who dd not have same life opportunities as u..
WE SHALL KNOW THEM BY THE FRUITS OF THEIR LABOR…
Exactly which Kabovas are those who have contributed positively to mother Zambia?
There is a lot of resources that are uncollected from the mines, we need to those monies to be put into our economy instead of leaving them for raping bby our so called investors. Secondly, health sector requires atleast 15% of the National budget according to the abuja declaration, last year we had 12% going towards the health sector and this year 9% , why???? This why we have drugs shortages in our health facilities and recently the country was rocked with severe shortages of ARV’s that should have been an eye opener but our Government is very blind to such occurrences. Agriculture allocation is also very dismal, and its a very critical unit that needs serious interventions, other countries are able to propel there national economies just through agriculture because they take the…
If you are getting more than 3000 wapya Munzi,meaning you pay more in taxes the adjustments only benefit obvisiously the mere grade chakutisin employment,so this nonsense of 800 benefit just shows your poor analysis of the PAYE scheme.
More money in Your Pocket.Excellent budget.
but iwe you are surely a Chibwi! By the way Sata has 2degrees. People these days can get degrees without steping a foot in class. You are hoping people will strike over a wage freeze? And you are the same chaps talking about reducing spending?
this is a very good budget for the country. wage freeze is revise-able within budget year so long government performs, after all there is a proposal for exempt before PAYE has gone up to K3000. that in itself is salary increament across the board, whether you work for a zambian, chinese, american or indian. my problem is with clear beer duty, please honorable minister, be aware that everytime beer prices go up, corruption follows suit, how about that sir. all major sectors seem to be well catered for. with love guys
I think Economics should be introduced in secondary school so that we have literate bloggers comment. This is sad.. People ar waitn 4 sata 2 die thats wen they will say good thngs..this hw it was with Mwanawasa.
Differed recruitment to 2015? So all of you Teachers,Nurses,Doctors e.t.c in training who are due for graduation between now and 2015 must brace for tough times.You will only be considered for employment after the October 2015 budget.The recruitment ban might be extended because the following year will elections.
Wage freeze,More money in the pocket?
I am more concerned, despite the good things we will receive, with the effect on which the financing of the budget will have on the longterm indebtness of and Job creation in our country.
My understanding is that the level of debt the country has been inccuring the past few years has been growing quite fast and in this budget a significant amount of the budget will be financed by govenment borrowing,
The second matter as a derivative of Government borrowing from internal source is the effect of bank interest rates rising that may have an effect of local companies failing to borrow and finance planned programmes and as a consequence Job creation.
The Government has frozen employment till 2015. Are we not shooting ourselves twice!
Can someone please with more knowledge…
We need to be very wise now.Let us work hard.Let us think big.Let us look beyond.
Let us use everything we to make money even away from Zambia.
its imperative to be rational in our comments. your comments will be most helpful if you give empirical evidence in its support.we should always think and talk of ways to improve. we would like to hear your views and feelings on important national issues like this, but remember; even if we cant see you, we can still think of how stupid or intelligent you must be by the type of comments you make.