By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
THE 2022 national budget should contain strict measures which will curb leakages from the treasury, says Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) Head of Research, Boyd Muleya.
Mr Muleya said some of the budget expectations for 2022 include measures to curb leakages from the treasury which was critical to managing public resources.
“We expect measures to curb leakages from the treasury to be enhanced. We expect Government to provide more support to the private sector and pursue a private sector-led economic recovery.
“This should start by allocating sufficient resources to the line ministries which include the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry and indeed, the newly created Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise,” he said in a statement.
Mr Muleya said CTPD was looking forward to a budget which would exhibit a great deal of consistency between Government pronouncements and its commitments which would be evidenced by the budgetary allocations thereof.
CTPD, he stated, expected the budget to be characterised by a re-alignment of priorities within the existing expenditure framework.
“We do not expect a substantial change in the total budget size. Post-budget presentation, emphasis will be on ensuring budget credibility, sticking to the plan! We implore the Minister of Finance to make a resounding assurance and commitment in this regard,” Mr Muleya said.
He also indicated that CTPD expected that the budget would have increased support from co-operating partners to supplement domestic revenue generation efforts.
Nevertheless, he explained, it was expected that the domestic resource envelope should increase from the K68 billion which was envisioned and exceeded by ZRA in 2021.
“While we commend ZRA for the good performance in this fiscal year, going forward, we recommend that their revenue targets should be more aligned with the expenditure budget.
“This would entail narrowing the gap between planned expenditure and target revenues, which in 2021 stood at about K51.6 billion,” Mr Muleya said.
