via 2014 budget passed January 29, 2014 by Veneranda Langa NewsDay
THE 2014 $4,2 billion National Budget was passed yesterday in the National Assembly after the Finance Bill to operationalise the budget sailed through the Third Reading stage without any objections from MPs.
During debate on the Second Reading stage of the Bill, Chinamasa told the House that he was going to introduce inter-bank lending and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe staff was first going to be trained to be able to do the transactions.
He said he was going to allow the Finance 2014 Bill to pass, albeit with a heavy heart due to the high expenditure of 73% that government was going to incur civil servants’ salaries.
“I will ask this House to pass this Bill with a heavy heart because I know 73% is all going to wages and nothing is going to recurrent expenditure,” said Chinamasa.
“The structural weaknesses of our budget are that it is heavy on wages and low on capital formation and it goes back many years ago from 2009 when it was 60% and this year it is 73%.”
He, however, said he was not going to entertain any ideas to retrench any members of the civil servants.
The 2014 Finance Bill now awaits scrutiny at the Senate.
COMMENTS