ZIMBABWE’S twice-postponed national budget to be unveiled today by Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, is expected to grow by 47,82 percent but will still remain too small to accommodate wage demands by the country’s restive public sector workers.
Sources indicated that Biti’s budget is likely to amount to US$3,4 billion, moderately higher than the US$2,3 billion budget for the current year.
This is likely to worsen relations between the ruling elites and the country’s troubled civil servants, who have demanded that government should commit itself to realistic salary increments to cushion them from an inclement economy.
Biti’s budget is also expected to spite President Robert Mugabe’s indigenisation crusade by announcing the creation of a US$100 million Employment Creation Fund to address unemployment levels estimated to be over 80 percent.
Biti is the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T).
The move is likely to make the country’s national budget a key arena in the fight for political power betw-een President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Prime Mini-ster Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T.
ZANU-PF has escalated its drive to indigenise the country’s economy by compelling all foreign and white-owned firms to cede at least 51 percent of their shareholding to black Zim-baweans, a move critici-sed by the MDC-T leadership, which sees the campaign as a ploy by its main rival to enrich the elite.
PM Tsvangirai has said his party supports investment initiatives meant to court foreign investors and create jobs in the economy.
Biti’s budget is likely to reflect tensions between the two dominant parties in the inclusive government, whose association is likely to become more strained ahead of expe-cted elections betw-een next year and 2013.
There were suggestions that the Finance Minister could also pass allocation for a planned election, a move that could directly antagonise ZANU-PF, which has been agitating for polls to get rid of the inclusive government.
Biti was also said to have “seriously considered” scrapping retention of funds from fines by the police and the Registrar General’s office that were introduced before dollarisation.
It was not immediately clear if Biti would follow this with a pronouncement during his budget presentation proscribing the retention of these funds.
But greater focus will likely be on how Biti tackles the issue of potentially damaging agitation by civil servants, who have demanded wage and salary increases since dollarisation in 2009.
Previously, Biti has said that civil servants’ salary review was impossible, insisting that revenue under a hard currency budgetary regime has not improved sufficiently to allow for such an unwise budgetary review.
The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) said it was grateful to government for the last salary increase in July but was now expecting nothing short of an upward review of basic income for teachers to levels matching the Poverty Datum Line (PDL).
ZIMTA chief executive officer, Sifiso Ndlovu, said: “The salaries and allowances should be increased in tandem with the country’s agreed and verifiable PDL.
The average salaries for public sector workers remain low and in the majority of cases below a taunted Gross Domestic Product per-capita of US$400 and further trail PDL. Most public sector workers (about 96 percent) earn below PDL.”
Biti is unlikely to announce a huge salary rise for the civil service. In his Mid-Year Fiscal Policy review, Biti said treasury was now seeking transparent diamond sales to widen the revenue base.
“The current fiscal challenges and the wage pressures have made this economy overly reliant on fresh diamond revenues. In this regard, it is important that there is a proper legitimate legal framework dealing with diamond revenue,” Biti said.
“This should be consistent with the Constitu-tion, the Public Finance Management Act and other laws of Zimbabwe, which demand that all public resources and income be accounted for through the Consol-idated Revenue Fund.”
Bulawayo-based economic analysts, Eric Bloch, said Biti should trim the bloated travel bill incurred by government ministers and senior civil servants in order to reallocate the money towards more urgent commitments.
“A matter that must be addressed urgently is the issue of foreign travel by government officials.
The travel bill is high and we simply can’t afford to sustain such high costs in the long run,” said Bloch.
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