Biti said this when he was presenting the mid-year fiscal policy statement in Harare today. Biti said that government was now in a position to fund the $132,5 million budget for the polls.
He said some of the money was allocated as follows. $16,5 million was for voter registration, $8,97 million for voter education, $15,6 million for voters’ roll inspection, $91,6 million for the conduct of the elections and $0,22 million for post-election expenses.
“I am pleased to announce that as of July 25 2013 we have raised all the money needed for the elections,” Biti said.
He said he would not reveal how he raised the funds.
“The money is now there. Arrangements can be made to pay the election workers after the polls but that is not our intention,” he said.
Biti said on Monday he had disbursed $40 million and $20 million was disbursed today. $36 milllion would be for allowances and per diems for the election officers.
“I am very unhappy that the Ministry of Finance was left alone to raise the money. After leaving us alone to raise the money they also interfered with our efforts to raise the money. Our efforts to raise money from the United Nations were hindered by the Minister of Justice and our efforts to raise money from other donors were scuttled by the same individual,” Biti said referring to Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa.
Biti said the country needed to raise $3,5 million by August 14. “This will be a challenge,” he said.
The outgoing finance minister said the next government would be faced with tough immediate challenges as soon as it assumed office.
“The new government will need at least $4 billion for immediate things. Recurrent expenditure is going to be huge. They will need a salary buffer of at least $1 billion. They are new structures and offices that are provided in the new commissions including commissions and provincial structures.
“Added to that will be the capital expenditure associated with new governments. There are also huge arrears in areas such as service provision, unpaid certificates, to companies such as ZESA and Net One. There are about $700 million in domestic arrears. We believe these things are doable,” Biti said.
He said revenue for the period under review was at $1,8 billion against a target of $1,7 billion. He again took a swipe a diamond companies for not remitting money to the government.
“Regrettably between January and now we have not received a single cent or dime from the diamond companies. To some of us this is downright theft. If we had money from diamonds we would not have had some of the problems we have had with funding of the budget, difficulties in funding elections. What these companies have done is the most unpatriotic and most unnationalistic thing to do,” he said.
Biti said the last six to seven months had been the most difficult for him and his team.
“We have had to watch the bank account every second to see how much is coming. A lot of Zimbabweans have no idea the kind of pain we have gone through,” Biti said.
Government expenditure was at $1,82 billion and 71,1 percent of that went to employment costs. According to Biti the government spent $104,4 million on the referendum in March.
In the banking sector deposits rose from $703 million in 2009 to $4,43 billion as at May 31 2013.
Biti told the media that he had held a meeting with bankers and they had expressed serious reservation over the recent move by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo to cancel all bills owed by residents to local governments.
“Bankers are seriously concerned by a certain directive. Most banks are exposed to this debt. They told me that this would have catastrophic consequences to the banking sector. I am told that seven banks can actually fail as a result of that directive,” Biti said.
Annual inflation fell to levels below three percent.
“During the first half of 2013, annual inflation was 2,5 percent in January, rising to three percent in February before slowing down to 2,8 percent, 2,5 percent and 2,2 percent in March, April and May respectively. In June 2013 inflation stood at 1,87 percent,” Biti said.
“The low inflation is attributed to low business activity in the economy,” he said.
Post published in: News