Chombo shoots down Marondera budget: The irony!

By Ricky Munyaradzi Mukonza

I read with a sense of irony an article entitled ‘Chombo shoots down Marondera budget’ in which Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Dr Ignatius Chombo told the Marondera council that their proposed budget did not adhere to the government directive that 70 percent of the budget should go to service delivery and 30 percent to salaries.

That the most reasonable balance in any public budget is one that puts more resources in service delivery than other ancillary activities should not be an issue. I know that there is a whole debate among local government practitioners about the feasibility of this directive under the prevailing conditions in Zimbabwe.

For example, some managers in local authorities argue that to attract staff in specialised fields such as IT, Engineering, Surveying etc. an organisation must be prepared to pay market related remuneration and this naturally drives the employment costs up.

In this case, if the Minister wants to assume powers to control employment costs for local authorities, he must also be prepared to control what prospective employees demand on the labour market. Is that possible? This however is a debate that I am willing to engage on another day.

It is common knowledge that financial resources are critical in ensuring that an organisation achieves its objectives, and that how these resources are deployed betrays what the priorities for the same organisation are.

It also goes without saying that public institutions whether in the national or local tier of government have ensuring public service delivery as their primary business. Given all this, that service delivery should receive more financial resources in any public budget becomes an uncontestably clear point.

I am pretty sure this was the thinking behind the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing’s directive to local authorities. How reasonable?

However, at this point in time the above directive could have made perfect sense anywhere else except in Zimbabwe where a ‘capital’ versus ‘recurrent’ expenditure analysis of the national budget points to public budgeting that is largely consumption-driven. This year, of the US$4.1 billion total budget, 92.5 per cent is recurrent expenditure and within this expenditure, 81 percent covers employment costs.

It has been alleged that part of the 81% are costs of ghost workers, some of whom are employed to pursue partisan agendas. The government has been dilly dallying in dealing with the issue of ghost workers which was first raised by the late former Minister of Public Service Elphas Mukonoweshuro during the Inclusive Government era.

Whilst the point of this piece is not to contest or totally dismiss the “70 percent of the budget should go to service delivery and 30 percent to salaries” directive by national government to local authorities, nor am I condoning poor prioritisation of financial resources by local authorities, but rather I wish to expose the hypocrisy of national government in dealing with critical issues of public budgeting.

If indeed the principle is that more resources need to be deployed to service delivery, it must be evident across all government tiers. If indeed ‘30:70’ ratio on employment cost and service delivery is the reasonable ratio for local authorities, how can ’81:19’ that we find with the national government be condoned?

These government institutions are operating in similar socioeconomic conditions and therefore it must be expected that their principles of operation should be more or less the same. If national government cannot practice it, then it has no business in giving ‘directives’ to subordinate tiers as this will be akin to a ‘gakanje rinodzidzisa vana kufamba vakati tasa iro richifamba nedivi.

The bigger point to be made here is that national government need to ensure that it leads by example by reducing its recurrent expenditure to reasonable levels that will see some financial resources being freed for both service delivery and capital expenditure.

In fact that will even free up some funds to assist some of the failing local authorities, especially the urban ones, with funds to deliver such public goods and services as water, which have been perennial problems.

With the same measure local authorities need to always reflect through their annual budgets that they have not forgotten their raison d’être which is public service delivery. This is where the bulk of their financial resources need to be deployed for the good of the common man and woman in the streets and villages of Zimbabwe!

Ricky Munyaradzi Mukonza is the Treasurer of the Committee of the Zimbabwe People’s Charter (CPC) and writes here in his own capacity.