The 2022 national budget will be presented to the National Assembly on Friday 29th October 2021. This Budget is an initial benchmark for the UPND administration and is, therefore, expected to reveal government’s key priorities for the year 2022. The UPND won the 2021 general elections on the promise of higher economic growth and prosperity, job creation, prudent management of public resources and good governance, among others. The 2022 budget will therefore be the first litmus test for the UPND government as to whether or not they are determined to deliver on their campaign promises. Transparency International Zambia (TI-Z) therefore calls upon all Zambians to scrutinize the 2022 budget in search of indicators of prudent debt management, greater commitment to economic recovery and development, higher allocations towards the social sectors and good governance through promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in the management of public resources.
The Zambian people are aware that the UPND administration has committed to deliver change in the way public resources are managed. The budget is therefore a critical tool for generating change through implementing measures aimed at reducing corruption in the budget cycle.
In the 2021 budget, government committed to introducing public procurement reforms in order to give priority to citizens to participate in the supply of goods and services, introduce price benchmarking, penalize fronting and selling of contracts, improve contract management, make it mandatory to use the Electronic Procurement System and penalize offenders. TI-Z therefore expects the 2022 budget to reflect the progress made in implementing these reforms and develop new measures to curb corruption in the procurement system.
The 2022 budget should also address the debt burden which has continued to crowd-out the social sectors through demanding a greater share of the budget for debt servicing. The reduced budget shares of the social sectors over the past few years has worsened the poverty situation for most households. There is need to allocate more resources towards education, health and social protection in order to reduce the vulnerabilities which trigger petty corruption as citizens are forced to compete for inadequate social services.
TI-Z also calls upon the UPND government to urgently publish and widely circulate the 2022 citizens’ budget. A citizens’ budget allows for easy understanding of the content of the budget and for a wider section of the general public to participate in the budgeting process.
Maurice K. Nyambe
TI-Z Executive Director
