Africa-Press – Botswana. Government ministries are usually required to produce solid proof of reasons for supplementary funds requests before such appeal could be acceded to.
Speaking in Parliament on December 15, after the House passed the supplementary estimates for this financial year, Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame said her ministry did not agree to supplementary budgets simply because they had been requested.
“Normally we sit down with each ministry and give them a chance to justify their requests. They have to prove their monthly expenditures, their account balance and how they plan to spend the supplements they request,” she said.
Ms Serame said the reason for such was to avoid giving ministries additional funds while they were still sitting on initial funds disbursed during the national budget. She also advised the ministries to spend the supplements funds to justify requesting them, although she cautioned against recklessness.
“Such proof should be visible in areas such as maintenance of projects, which has proved to be problematic across many ministries,” she said. In other issues, Ms Serame pleaded with the Ministry of Agriculture to conduct public education on all platforms on the newly launched Temo Letlotlo initiative as farmers seemed to misunderstand it.
Meanwhile, legislators supported the supplementary requests by various ministries, indicating that there was a need to disburse such funds as soon as possible to allow implementers to serve the electorate. Legislator for Gaborone Central, Mr Tumisang Mangwegape-Healy said farmers were waiting eagerly to utilise Temo Letlotlo this rainy season, hence the need to disburse funds sooner to kickstart the initiative.
He said such a move would help improve food security for the next year. Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi, however, indicated concern that supplementary requests by ministries were increasing in amount annually.
“This trend now leads to the situation where it looks like we have two budget session in a year.
Supplementary budgets have to be low to justify that they arose as a result of unforeseen circumstances,” he said.
Mr Mmolotsi also encouraged ministries that owed their employees due to various reasons to use the supplementary funds to settle such debts.
On the need to bail out Air Botswana, Mr Mmolotsi said government should instead consider terminating the contract with the airline’s fuel supplier.
“There is proof that the supplier has inflated the prices to the extent that the airline preferred to fuel outside the country.
The contract is the main reason the airline is struggling,” he said.He said terminating the contract would therefore relief both the airline and government as its financial supporter.
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