KANDETA

By KAIKO NAMUSA-
THE Treasury has released K1.47 billion to cater for operations, emoluments, debt service, as well as for various developmental programmes.
Secretary to the Treasury, Fredson Yamba said that in line with Government’s objective of maintaining Zambia’s sound credit worthiness, K211 million was released as interest payments on Government bonds and treasury bills.
Mr Yamba said K74.2 million was for external debt service, and K29 million for dismantling arrears owed by Government to the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company.
Mr Yamba said in a statement issued by Ministry of Finance public relations officer, Chileshe Kandeta that efficiency and effectiveness in the operations of the
Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) had a direct impact on tax revenue collections.
“It is for this reason that the Treasury always funds the ZRA so that the resultant revenues collected are also, in a timely manner, channeled to domestically financed developmental programmes,” he said.
Some of ministries and other Spending Agencies, which received funds for operations, productivity improvement, and developmental programmes, were the Ministry of Education, Commerce Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, Ministry of Lands.
The Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health, Transport, Works, Supply and Communications, Youth and Sport and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have also been funded.
Others are the Drug Enforcement Commission, the Judiciary, the National Assembly, the Zambia Police, the Zambia Prison Service, the Electoral Commission of Zambia, ZRA, the Human Rights Commission and other service Commissions.
The funds were released between June 9 and 20, this year.
Of the K35 million public resources given to the Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health, K15.1 million was for the social cash transfer system.
“This is a demonstration of the Government’s continued commitment to the mitigation of income inequality and a direct intervention in helping deserving recipients to hit-the-ground-running in their micro-entrepreneurial endeavours,” Mr Yamba said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock received K174.5 million for a Livestock Infrastructural Support Project, the Irrigation Development Support Project, and a loan under the Food Reserve Agency (FRA).
The Treasury provided the ZRA with a grant of K15.8 million to facilitate revenue collection and other operations.
Mr Yamba urged citizens to continue participating in economic transformation programmes with open minds by taking greater interest in monitoring the implementation of projects in their localities and reporting any concerns, which they observed on project implementation sites, to relevant Government authorities.
He said the Ministry of Finance would continue to issue regular Treasury information briefs to ensure that the public got timely updates on developments in the economy.
In line with this objective, the ministry will be launching various online information platforms that is, the website, Facebook page, and the Web Portal on July 2, this year.