Commentary, 2nd - 9th October, 09.

On Friday 9th October this week, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane will unveil the 2010 National Budget against a backdrop of actual revenue challenges in the 2009 budget year. Already, the Government has asked for a supplementary budget of over K200 billion to meet costs of capital projects. The actual supplementary budget is yet to be ascertained. In other words, as parliament debates the 2010 budget, it will also be considering the supplementary budget for 2009 given that revenue collections fell below budget for the most part of 2009.

The budget cycle has been brought forward primarily to allow for a full year implementation programme, running through January to December. Previously, Government could still spend about 25 percent of its anticipated budget between January and March when the budget process was in motion. But this expenditure was limited to mainly recurrent expenditures. Capital projects had to wait until the budget itself was approved by parliament.

Now that the pressure to approve the budget process has been managed through the new cycle, we expect parliament to seriously scrutinize the document so that it does not merely come out as a given. The document that will be presented by Dr. Musokotwane will become law by end of December so that come January, it becomes effective.

The most critical phase of the budget making process is in parliament. Parliament will have to debate the budget policy, resource projections, macroeconomic targets, expenditure priorities and revenue sources particularly taxation. If anything can go wrong in a national budget, it happens at this stage. The critical challenge for the 2010 budget is that most government institutions did not make adequate submissions this time around and much of what is contained will be based on previous estimates.

The business community, households and other institutions have since made their submissions and it is up to parliament, especially the Committee on Estimates, to ensure the budget is a product of extensive consultations with economic agents. For this to happen, parliament will need to take a one week recess shortly after the presentation of the budget to go back tot their constituencies and capture people’s views on the budget.

Business associations, the private sector, households and all other institutions will need to influence parliament on adopting these estimates. Zambians are expecting more than just an endorsement of the budget. The members of parliament have to ensure the budget is aligned to national expectations. We have enough time to come up with a comprehensive, dynamic and all encompassing national budget.