BY GRACE CHAILE LESOETSA
AS the K173 billion 2022 budget takes effect, UPND has called on Zambians to exercise patience to allow Government to mop up resources that will feed into the budget to ensure its implementation.
UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa made this call in an interview yesterday that it was understandable that Zambians are excited that they are now under the UPND government’s budget, but should be patient as its implementation will not be done at once.
Last October, Finance and National Planning Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane unveiled a K173 billion budget which will see the employ- ment of 30, 000 teachers and 11, 000 health workers as well as increased Constituency
Development Fund (CDF) of K25.7 million from K1.6 million.
“Our call to the people of Zambia is to exercise some level of reasonable patience to give Government and its cooperating partners time to mop up resources that will feed into the budget being applied so that the expected government targets can be realigned.
“President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration are in a hurry to begin to im- plement measures that have been spelt out so Zambians can see change,” Mr Mweetwa said.
He explained that budget implementation was a pro- cess which cannot be applied on the first day of January but through the year.
“A budget is an instrument through which revenue is collected and it is allocated and utilised, so this is a process. It’s not like when you say that there is a UPND budget, as if there is some heap of money which is waiting to be spent by the new government called UPND. The money in the budget which is supposed to be expended will come from various streams of revenue col- lection, that the government has put certain measures,” Mr Mweetwa said.
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