Ncube to present 2019 National Budget end of November

01 Nov, 2018 - 15:11 0 Views
Ncube to present 2019 National Budget end of November Minister Mthuli Ncube

eBusiness Weekly

HARARE – Presentation of the 2019 National Budget has been set for November 22 this year, Parliament heard on  Wednesday.

Responding to questions in the National Assembly, Finance and Economic  Development Minister Prof Mthuli Ncube said the budget would focus more  on reducing government expenditure pattern which currently takes a huge  chunk of the national cake.

“One of our budget priorities is to cut back on the travel budget and  the general waste by government and this is very strong in my budget,” he said.

“We are still working on our budget, I am going to present our budget  statement at the end of November, on 22nd of November and then at that  stage I will be able to say when I will be able to provide Members of  Parliament with transport,” he said in response to a question on when  the government would purchase vehicles for Parliamentarians.

The 2019 National Budget is expected to bring measures to strengthen  revenue collection and minimizing government expenditure to reduce the  ballooning budget deficit which stood at $1.12 billion by June,  according to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.

According to the pre-budget strategy paper, a drastic reduction n of  the budget deficit to 5.2 percent of GDP in 2019 is targeted.

“The budget statement will be more precise in terms of addressing  expenditure, overall wage bill and travel. All these are obtained in the  pre-budget strategy paper. Next week we will have the opportunity to  discuss further as to how we are going to deal with issues on how  government can adjust is expenditure,” said the Minister.

According to the paper, revenue collections for the first half of the  year amounted to $2.51 billion against a target of $2.21 billion,  resulting in a positive variance of $0.30 billion.

However, total government expenditure during the same period stood at $3.72 billion against targeted expenditure of $2.60 billion, implying an  expenditure over-run of $ 1.12 billion. – New Ziana

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