Zimbabwe Budget Formulation

Today the Finance Minister of Zimbabwe, Patrick Chinamasa is going to present the 2017 National Budget. I disagree with the structure of budget formulation in Zimbabwe. It does not guarantee optimal outcomes. The budget framework system in Zimbabwe is hierarchical as opposed to collegial.

A hierarchical system utilizes a top-down approach whereby an Executive official, for example, the Finance Minister has greater powers in determining the content and nature of the budget. In this case, Parliament has limited powers in changing the content of the budget or ultimately shooting it down altogether. Even other Ministers have little sway over the budgets of their line Ministries. Supporters of this approach state that it ensures that stability in the budget process is achieved. The thinking argument is that the Finance Minister is the best official in determining an equitable and sustainable budget.

A collegial system gives Parliament, especially its committee systems greater powers in determining the substance of the budget. Supporters of this approach state that, among other things, transparent outcomes are inevitable. Transparent outcomes in the sense that government policy can be determined during the budget delibelations in Parliament as opposed in a hierarchical system where the preferences of the Executive can be railroaded across the Parliament process without much time to decifer government policy from the budget figures.

Some mainstream economists prefer hierarchical systems to collegial systems but in my opinion, their analysis is off point because the context in which it is used does not apply in the Zimbabwean context. They ignore that Executive hegemony can impact negatively on the budget process and also restrictions to Executive hegemony are not explicitly stated. Sorely looking at indicators of net outcomes is wrong because some of the parameters used in calculating the net outcomes are incomparable.

Hierarchical systems enable the whole consultation process to be a cosmetic one with the real decisions being made by the Finance Minister. Passing the budget through Parliament is just a formality in this case. Parliament does not have the teeth to have proper checks and balances on the whole budget processes. Even when monitoring expenditure, Parliament does not have the powers to effectively reprimand the Executive, when spending is way out of sync wiith the approved estimated expenditure even so when evidence of mismanagement and corruption is evident.

There is not much literature on the budget process reform of Zimbabwe. Scholars have been sleeping in this area. The desire for reform have been expressed by Parliament itself from the 90s, but the reform has mainly been on the whole lawmaking process without special reference to the budget reform process.