Parliament passed the 2025 National Budget this week after lengthy debates that went through the night and would end early in the morning.
In an interview this evening, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube confirmed that Parliament passed the budget at about 2am on Thursday.
“I am pleased that Parliament passed the 2025 National Budget yesterday morning (Thursday) at about 2am. This has followed long debates and discussions over this budget over two days last week and then three days this week,” he said.
“It was long discussions indeed. On one occasion, we finished the debate at 5.30am. So it just shows that Parliament was really keen to represent the citizens of Zimbabwe in contributing to the budget.
“I was very pleased with the contributions of the portfolio committees that presented their findings in terms of consultation with the public and their own views on the budget.”
Prof Ncube presented the ZiG276,4 billion (about US$7,5 billion) budget on November 28, under the theme: “Building resilience for sustained economic transformation.”
He said some of the issues that interested Members of Parliament pertained to how the budget builds resilience for different groups of people and deepens economic transformation.
The support for agriculture, for example, through investment in dam construction which in turn support irrigation, is one way the budget is building resilience for farmers against climate shocks and food insecurity.
“There was also a lot of interest in terms of how the budget is building resilience for women and female entrepreneurs,” he said.
In that respect, the budget will support the capitalisation of the Empowerbank as well as Women’s Bank.
There were plans to remove the requirement for collateral on some categories of loans so that people without the security could access loans and embark on their life-changing projects.
Prof Ncube said provision of sanitary wear to young girls, generally through the public schools system, was a topic for debate and ZiG211 million was allocated for that.
The budget builds resilience against currency and other shocks by maintaining a fiscal discipline where the budget deficit will stay within 0,4 percent of gross domestic product, or at least below 1 percent of GDP.
“This means that then we won’t be monetising any additional Government debt, which will then cause volatility or rather cause growth in money supply and volatility for the currency and then push up inflation.
“So fiscal discipline is key. And also the budget is supportive of our discipline in the monetary sector to make sure that both the monetary side and the fiscal side are able to support currency stability and overall macroeconomic stability,” said Prof Ncube.
The budget also supports sectors such as the infrastructure sector, where any investment in that sector really is investment in future growth.
Food provision for vulnerable communities.
