FINANCE Minister, Mthuli Ncube says the country realised a budget surplus of almost $1 billion in the month of December 2019.
The details are contained in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Performance covering the month of December 2019.
“The budget incurred a surplus of $984.2 million against a targeted surplus of $540.9 million,” says the minister in his statement.
The records state that total revenue collection for the month of December 2019 amounted to $5 billion against a target of $3.4 billion.
This resulted in a positive of $1.7 billion and surpassing the target by 52 %.
The positive performance recorded is attributed to goods and taxes which contributed $2.1 billion against a budget of $1.4 billion.
Taxes on income contributed $2.1 billion against a budget of $1.2 billion while Intermediated Money Transfer Tax commonly known as the 2 % tax contributed $503 million against a budget of $309 million.
During the period under review, non-tax revenue recorded a negative variance of $102 million and much of this is on government fee licences where collections were below target.
“Total expenditure for the month of December 2019 amounted to $4.2 billion against a target of $2.8 billion resulting in a variance of $1.3 billion,” read the statement.
Expenditure for the month of December amounted to $672 million against a target of $576 million giving a variance of $96.6 million.
Operational expenditure stood at $1.2 billion against a target of $487 million.
However, the huge surplus comes at a time government is struggling to meet most of the basic citizen needs in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Treasury is struggling to put in place adequate testing and tracking facilities of the pandemic.
In a surprise development which has left Zimbabweans begging for answers, Ncube recently launched a Covid-19 crowd funding initiative. – Newzim
