Maravi

Magande justifies unspent money at end of financial year

Magande justifies unspent money at end of financial year
By Chibaula Silwamba in Mfuwe
Wednesday January 09, 2008 [03:00]

FINANCE minister Ng’andu Magande has said government’s good budgeting system has led to the country having unspent money at the end of the financial year compared to the past when there were frequent budget overruns. Recently some Zambians condemned the government over its failure to spend huge amounts of money on development projects. This was after Secretary to the Treasury Evans Chibiliti revealed that K900 billion in last year’s budget had not been spent by the end of 2007 due to long tender procedures.

Addressing a rally at Chiutika Basic School on Saturday, Magande said at the time the Mwanawasa government came to power there were serious economic problems which the government had improved on.

“When President Levy Mwanawasa took over office, most of you had a different vocabulary. Those who knew about budgeting, your vocabulary was budget overrun. Those who have issues of foreign exchange, you were saying kwacha is useless.

Those who knew a lot of economics, you were saying Zambia is Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC),” Magande observed. “But Mwanawasa said this vocabulary is not suitable for our country. We decided to change the vocabulary from all these bad words.”

He said because of the guidance of President Mwanawasa, Zambia was no longer a HIPC country.

“Because of the programme your budget now has no overrun; we even end up with some money at the end of the year because we have not completed the tendering procedures,” Magande said. “Instead of a kwacha depreciating uncontrollably now the kwacha is very strong and stable.”

He said the good economy had boosted the confidence of foreign investors and lenders.

“There are many foreign companies that have come to invest in Zambia. They have found that because of our good economic management, they come to this country or we go to their banks and they can lend us money or give us grants,” Magande said. “With this situation, all I can urge all of you is that we must continue to work hard.”

He said in order to ensure that any money the government gets from tax payers or cooperating partners was properly used, the government had formulated the Fifth National Development Plan.

“For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have a development plan,” said Magande. “We want you to be interested in the development plan so that you know what your government wants to do for you. In order for you to understand the FNDP we translated it in local languages.”

Labels: 2007 BUDGET, MAGANDE, PROCUREMENT SYSTEMS

posted by MrK @ 4:09 AM