Treasury releases K5.63 billion for Govt operations

Chileshe Kandeta (Picture by Albert Mpezeni)

The Treasury released a total of K5.63 billion for developmental programmes and government operations in February, 2018 .

Ministry of Finance Public Relations Officer Chileshe Kandeta says of this amount, a total of K2.14 billion was for personal emoluments for public service workers,K1.5 billion went towards debt service, and K799 million was released for grants while the remainder of K1.22 billion went to other key programs including capital projects.

Mr Kandeta says K341 million was disbursed to ministries, provinces and other spending agencies for operations and for implementation of planned programmes and activities.

He says the Auditor General was given K15 million for activity implementation, including for the production of the 2017 Audited Financial Report by 30^th September,2018.

He states that of the amount released for grants,K92 million went to the ministry of Agriculture for the Farmer Input Support Programme(FISP), while the Food Reserve Agency received K30 million to cater for costs associated with protecting, preserving, and maintaining food in various storage facilities across the country,with K4 million released towards the 2017/2018 Agricultural season crop survey.

Mr Kandeta adds  that K89.9 million was disbursed to the Local Government Equalisation Fund in order to facilitate the operations of Councils while the ministry of health received K60.8 million as hospital grats to facilitate operational costs of health facilities across the country and a further K80 million for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, commenting on fiscal discipline concerns by stakeholders with regards to the Auditor General’s report, Minister of Finance Margaret Mwanakatwe has reiterated that the government has embarked on the public financial management reforms in planning and budgeting, revenue administration, accounting, and reporting, internal audit and control, and public procurement to ensure and enshrine in law the prudent use of public resources.