By Own Correspondent| The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Information, Publicity and Media Services has lamented the paltry budget allocation to the ministry of information adding that the amount availed to the ministry by treasury made it difficult to fully support digitalisation.
Reacting to Mthuli Ncube’s 2019 Budget statement (Thursday), Chairperson of the committee, Prince Dubeko Sibanda who was represented by Settlement Chikwinya said it is sad that the ministry got a paltry $38 million against the proposed $100 million.
Said Sibanda:
“The Ministry has the following Policy Priorities for 2019-2021, expediting the finalisation of the Digital Terrestrial Project which entails migration from analogue television broadcasting to digital.
On this regard when we went for the Pre Budget Seminar in Bulawayo, the Committee presented a budget bid of $100m. It is sad that we only got $38m towards that project.
The ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services was allocated $45 192 000, an increase from the 2018 allocation of $26 901 000. The overall Ministry’s Vote is 0.43% of the total National Budget. This is less than the previous year’s allocation which was 0.54 % of the budget.
The Committee acknowledges the allocation by Treasury of $45 192 million of which $38 330 million was allocated for the digitalization project which is now way behind schedule. This is 91% of the budget allocation and the remaining 9% is for recurrent expenditure.
This leaves the Ministry with less allocation for operations. Of the recurrent expenditure of $4.062 million, $2.262 million goes towards the salaries of both the parent ministry and grant aided institutions. It will be difficult for the Ministry to support the digitalization programme with such a small allocation for operations.
The Ministry has unavoidable functions which need to be funded from the budget such as State occasions and national commemorations like Independence Day celebrations, Heroes and Defence Forces days, among others.
However, within the issue of coverage it is a unanimous decision by the Committee that when it comes to political party coverage by ZBC, all political parties, moreso those represented in Parliament, must have equal coverage.
These national programmes are commemorated nationwide and this makes it difficult to support them from a budget of $220 000.”__