TREASURY has introduced a new manual that equips local authorities and central government with the tools to manage fiscal grants as it moves to promoe transparency and accountability.
The Zimbabwe Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers manual was launched in Harare yesterday
“It is critical to note that, successful implementation of the devolution agenda cannot be done overnight but requires continuous commitment and collaboration among key stakeholders over the short, medium and long-term basis,” Finance minister Mthuli Ncube said while launching the manual.
“The new transformative and inclusive developmental agenda stance of ‘leaving no one and no place behind’, being promoted by government, can be fully operationalised in an environment where the existing institutional frameworks have been strengthened in order to ensure sustainable infrastructure delivery that is affordable and provide value for money.
“Accordingly, government is hereby launching the Zimbabwe inter-governmental fiscal transfers system administrative manual whose main purpose is to provide technical guidance to lower tiers of government to effectively and efficiently manage fiscal grants as well as guide central government entities responsible for administering the same.”
The tiers of government were established under the Constitution and is made up of national/central government, provincial/metropolitan councils and local authorities (local government).
The manual covers six major areas — tiers of government, grants allocation criteria, eligible expenditures, institutional framework for managing, financial management framework and monitoring and evaluation.
“This initiative will further ensure accountability and transparency in the utilisation of the fiscal grants and will further capacitate government to disburse resources timeously at the same time in the right proportion in order to make meaningful impact towards infrastructure and service delivery,” Ncube said.
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Since 2019, the government has sought to operationalise the provision of 5% of its revenues to its lower tiers in line with the Constitutional provision for devolution.
“Despite making annual devolution budgetary allocations, undeniably, in the absence of a clear intergovernmental fiscal transfers manual, a number of challenges were encountered ranging from project conceptualisation, appraisal, implementation, contract management, monitoring and evaluation as well as accounting and reporting, among other aspects of the project cycle,” George Guvamatanga, permanent secretary in Finance ministry, said.
“To kickstart the formulation of the administrative manual, government worked with all the relevant stakeholders to establish an inter-ministerial task force led by Treasury and the Local Government and Public Works ministry, to provide initial proposals for the intergovernmental fiscal transfer system.”
He said the development of the manual followed extensive consultations with various stakeholders, drawing experiences in-country, in the region and internationally.
There were benchmarking tours to countries such as Zambia, Kenya and Cambodia, Guvamatanga said.
