Biti says Zimbabwe’s 2019 budget is meaningless

Also, is the issue around austerity.  The budget theme is that of austerity for prosperity.  Austerity means fiscal retrenchment, the tightening up of the belt and retrenchment of expenditure.  Regrettably Hon. Speaker, if you look at the 2018 budget and the 2019 budget, the Parliamentary Vote is the only one that did not have an increase but everything else increased.  That is not austerity because at the minimum, if the Minister wanted to be loyal to austerity, at least on expenditure, the figures for 2019 should not have been more than the figures of 2018.

What is unacceptable Hon. Speaker, is how the Minister proposes to fund his deficit. He proposes a deficit of $1.56 billion which on its own is strange when you are preaching austerity.  If you are preaching austerity at the very minimum, you ought to be able to balance books but in this case the Minister is actually budgeting for a budget deficit.  When you are running a fragile economy such as ours, deficit financing is a problem because a budget deficit produces dis-equilibriums and distortions which the Minister acknowledged himself in the Maiden Speech of the 1st October, 2018.

I want to draw your attention Hon. Speaker, to page 38 of the budget. We have something that is actually not permitted by the Constitution of Zimbabwe.  Of his expenditure and the budget deficit of $1.56 billion, he actually has a figure of $916.4 million which he describes as financing to be arranged. In other words, he has presented a budget here in respect $916.4 million which is unfunded and he does not know how he is going to fund this.  Surely, Parliament cannot pass hot air.

If you look at the provisions of Sections 308 and 309 of the Constitution, it is not permissible for Parliament to make an appropriation which is not funded and where the Minister does not know he is going to get the money from.  I do not know; what was the problem of simply saying we do not have this money, we do not know how it is going to be financed, therefore let us remove it so that we simply maintain a balanced budget.  So, I have a big problem of that from a constitutional point of view.

That is not the only section of the budget that breaches our law.  Firstly, the suggestion Hon. Speaker, that duty must be paid in US dollars for certain commodities including vehicles when Section 43 of the Reserve Bank Act recognises the US dollar and other bundles of multiple currencies as legal tender is on its own illegal.  In other words, as long as Zimbabwean law recognises the US dollar as legal tender and the bond note as legal tender, it is unlawful for the budget to suggest that for certain commodities and for certain items, you should pay in US$ only. That is unlawful and illegal – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.].

I am just touching on illegalities and another aspect of illegality Hon. Speaker pertains to the Minister’s suggestions on by-elections. The budget suggests that by-elections should be held once every two years or once every year. That is not possible Hon. Speaker because the Electoral Act is very clear. There has to be a by-election that has to be held within 90 days of a vacancy occurring. So, the budget cannot propose to do something that breaks the Zimbabwean law.

A third aspect of illegality Hon. Speaker, pertains to the suggestion in the revenue measures by the Minister that the maximum police fines should be $700.00. The Minister of Finance does not interfere – we have got separation of powers and the Executive does not interfere with the function of magistrates and judges on sentencing people and determining the measures of punishment, and I hope the Minister can revisit.

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