Maravi

Masebo slams govt’s move to scrap crop levies

Masebo slams govt’s move to scrap crop levies
By Fridah Zinyama
Sat 08 May 2010, 04:20 CAT

CHONGWE member of parliament Sylvia Masebo has said the councils will collapse due to the government’s decision to scrap the crop levies which had the potential of generating about K16.6 billion for the local authorities.

But Secretary to the Treasury Likolo Ndalamei, who was appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Estimates, said the government would start releasing the money to the councils in this quarter being the start of the crop marketing season.

Meanwhile, Ndalamei said the total revenue and grants for the first quarter amounted to K2.9 trillion and the collection was below the target of K3.6 trillion by K653.9 billion or 18 per cent.

In September 2009, the government abolished the collection of crop levies by the councils due to escalating levels of inefficiency associated with the levy and it was estimated that the councils would lose about K16.6 billion as revenue.

Yesterday, the estimates committee chaired by Bweengwa UPND parliamentarian Highvie Hamududu questioned whether or not the government widely consulted all the stakeholders involved before scrapping the crop levies because the councils which were in farming communities had been negatively affected by the decision.

Masebo, a former local government and housing minister, said 70 per cent of revenue from local authorities in farming communities like Mpongwe, Chongwe and Mkushi came from crop levies and the suspension seriously crippled their operations.

“Some councils raised as much as K325 million from the crop levies but can only raise about K75 million which is inadequate to fully manage this particular council,” she said.

Masebo said councils would collapse and the government should therefore sit down with the necessary stakeholders to look at the effects of the decision.

“Secretary to the Treasury, you have created problems for yourselves as you have done away with a good source of revenues which would have gone a long way in helping government meet its social obligations like garbage collection, road maintenance for the communities,” Masebo said. “Where are you going to get the resources from to meet these obligation? Already you have stated that you had a deficit for the first quarter.”

Masebo said different councils should have been profiled in order to determine how much each local authority could lose in the event that the crop levies were scrapped.

“This is because councils in farming communities would have lost out more than those in mining areas who do not necessarily grow a lot of crops,” Masebo said.

Hamududu said traders were actually paying the crop levies and not the farmers.

“In actual fact these traders buy crops from the farmers cheaply and the excuse given for scrapping the crop levies was that this would make mealie-meal prices more affordable, a situation which has not yet occurred,” he said.

Hamududu said the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) had undue influence on the government as if they represented all the stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

“With this budget deficit which government is currently experiencing, where are you going to get the money to ensure that councils are given grants to operate efficiently,” he asked.

Hamududu wondered why civil servants had not yet received their salaries.
“Is the delay in salary payment because of lack of funds?” Hamududu asked.

Kawambwa parliamentarian Elizabeth Chitika-Mulobeka said the government was failing to make good on its promise to disburse enough funds to the councils to cover for what they could have generated had the levies not been cancelled.

But Ndalamei said the councils would receive their funds from the government this quarter as they had not received their allocations between January and March.

“We have profiled the councils and each would get how much they would have raised from the crop levies,” he said.

On late payments, Ndalamei said the delay in paying civil servants was not due to lack of money but a payment system failure.

“The Ministry of Finance was undertaking an upgrade to the payment system but underestimated the time it would take to complete the exercise,” said Ndalamei. “All those workers who are under the deduct system would have already gotten their payments on Thursday and the others would have theirs by Friday.”

Labels: COUNCILS, LIKOLO NDALAMEI, SYLVIA MASEBO

posted by MrK @ 4:20 AM