Call for a 2023 people’s budget
Zimbabwe is commended for attaining third position in africa in the 2021 Open budget Survey (ObS) conducted by the international budget Partnership (ibP). The country has significantly improved on the Open budget index where it has moved from a score of 12 out of 100 in 2012; 49 out of 100 in 2019, to 57 out of 100 in the 2021 survey. The higher the score, the higher the degree of transparency however, the score is still below 61 out of 100, a benchmark score for the provision of sufficient budgetary information to the public.
The country has registered a marked transition towards greater fiscal transparency through publicising more budget documents, producing a citizen version of the budget, timely releasing of the 2021 and 2022 budget Strategy Papers (bSP) in a bid to enable citizens to make informed input in the budget formulation process. On the contrary, the bSP which sets priorities for the government’s expenditure in the forthcoming year and facilitates public, stakeholder and parliamentary consultations and engagements on the 2023 policy priorities is largely not known by the citizens as it is not well publicised. while on paper the country is registering progress, in practice the budgeting process is still far from being open, transparent and inclusive. This begs the question of whether the 2023 national budget will be a people’s budget? or like the other years, it remains an elitist process meant for politicians and technocrats while divorced from the people’s lived realities.
a people’s budget is one that puts its people at the centre of development priorities. it is a budget that makes a deliberate effort to reduce poverty and inequalities. because exclusion weakens democracy, weakens the social contract between the governed and those who govern and aggravates public mistrust in the government and its budgetary processes, a people’s budget is therefore one that its citizens own. budget ownership and credibility is achieved when there is greater inclusion and participation by affected social groups. as such, spending and revenue generation(budgeting) should be pro-poor.
a people’s budget is one that takes up views, needs, concerns and aspirations of the people, it is one that genuinely considers the voice of its people, ensures that pre-budget consultative meetings are not window-dressing exercises by adopting people’s priorities in the final budget. a people’s budget is one which gives life to the devolution agenda as defined in section 264 of the 2013 constitution, a budget which devolves economic power, responsibility and autonomy to provincial and local councils. it is also a budget which eliminates regional disparities and gender-based inequalities. it is a budget which empowers women, youth and people with disabilities. will the 2023 budget formulation process live up to these expectations?
The national budget in Zimbabwe is initiated and managed by the ministry of Finance and economic Development in compliance with Section 305 of the Constitution and Section 28(1) read together with Section 7(2)(a) of the Public Finance management act (PFma).
The PFma also mandates the minister of Finance and economic Development through the Parliament of Zimbabwe to solicit citizens’ input into the budget. Section 28 (5) of the Public Finance management act provides that; the minister may, through the appropriate portfolio committee of Parliament, seek the views of Parliament in the preparation and formulation of the national annual budget, for which purpose the appropriate portfolio committee shall conduct public hearings to elicit the opinions of as many stakeholders in the national annual budget as possible. The PFm act advances Section 13 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which provides that citizens must be involved in developmental plans and programmes that affect them. However, the provision of the PFm act does not only ensure citizen participation in governance processes but also ensures that the national budget responds to the needs and aspirations of the general populace.
To this end, the Parliament of Zimbabwe has religiously conducted pre-budget consultations throughout the country soliciting citizens’ views concerning the upcoming budget; however, the uptake of people’s recommendations and priorities in the final budget remains an issue of concern.
according the 2021 Zimbabwe Open budget Survey by ZimCODD, 61% of respondents felt that their views are not considered in the preparation of the final budget. For the 2023 national budget, the parliament released a notice for the prebudget consultative meetings just two weeks before the hearings which took place during week 3 to 7 October 2022.
This is not unique to the 2023 budget process but a tradition meant to keep citizens unaware so that they do not meaningfully participate or not participate at all. while the 2023 pre-budget consultations have been decentralised to 23 venues across the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe, lack of knowledge about the national budget process as a whole and lack of information about the pre-budget consultations by residents in the selected areas has resulted in poor turnout and poor quality of budget submissions in most areas. This foregoing discussion begs another set of questions - How sincere is the government in soliciting people’s views? and what public awareness and capacity building initiatives did the government embark on to enhance budget literacy skills among citizens ahead of the 2023 budget formulation process?
while Zimbabwe has a well-coordinated, structured and legislated national budget consultation process, with established institutions involved in the process, there are still a lot of challenges with respect to making the budget a people’s budget through effective citizen participation and engagement. These challenges exist across all the stages of the budget process i.e. pre-budget, budget implementation and post-budget phases.
Citizens are ill-prepared to participate, with little knowledge about what is involved and how they are expected to contribute in the budget formulation process. Further, awareness and access to the budget strategy paper which prepares citizens for effective participation during the budget consultation process is limited. while attempts have been made to conduct pre-budget consultations throughout the country, only a few people can be accommodated at the meetings.
approximately two consultation meetings are held per province, thereby leaving many people without an opportunity to participate.
while the deliberate move to target hard to reach and marginalised communities in the 2022 and 2023 national budget consultative meetings is commendable, it shouldn’t be a deliberate ploy to make the venues more inaccessible. Venues should remain within the reach of many for them to be inclusive and representative.
in conclusion, Zimbabwe still has a long way to go as far as enhancing citizen participation and national budget ownership is concerned. a people’s budget calls for effective citizen participation and uptake of people’s submissions in the final budget. Thus, the government should improve on public participation in the budget making process as this is one of the tenets of democratic governance enshrined in section 141(b) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The ministry of Finance and economic Development should unpack and popularise the budget Strategy Paper (bSP) to empower citizens for active engagement with the budget making process. Produce the bSP in a simplified and palatable manner, including in the 16 constitutionally recognized languages. This should include building citizens’ capacity on the national budget cycle and its timeframes in order to improve the quality of their participation. The ministry of Finance should adopt the people’s views and inputs from the prebudget submissions into the final budget. a 2023 people’s budget must: Strengthen social protection systems. Promote affordability, accessibility and inclusivity of healthcare and education delivery systems
Review current tax regime and reduce the tax burden on the poor and vulnerable i.e. women, youth, people with disabilities and the informal sector
Revive industry and commerce and create decent jobs for Zimbabwe’s youthful population
Stimulate effective debt management Promote sustainable domestic resource mobilisation
Curb corruption in the public sector, improve budget expenditure transparency and inculcate compliance with auditor General’s Recommendations by ministries, departments, agencies and local authorities.
Finance infrastructure development in key sectors (health, transport, energy, water, education, agriculture, iCT)
Fund climate change adaptation and resilience building programmes.
Curb illicit financial flows in the extractives and scrap off unjustifiable tax holidays & incentives.
Midzi is an analyst, social and economic justice activist and development practitioner driven to achieve sustainable impact in development and policy discourse. She is a grounded researcher dedicated to building high-performing institutions committed to socio-economic transformation and democratic development. These New Horizon articles published in the
are coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge, an independent consultant, past president of the Zimbabwe economics Society and past president of the chartered Governance & Accountancy (cGI Zim). — kadenge.zes@gmail.com or mobile +263
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