Where are the �good times�?

Mmegi Editor | Wednesday February 3, 2016 16:15

From the P14 billion proposed under the development budget for the coming financial year, Matambo only mentioned a handful of projects under the stimulus programme amounting to a total of a mere P1.3 billion.

In the absence of proper information and communication from government, we can only assume that Matambo could not have omitted mentioning ESP’s biggest projects and that the P1.3 billion projects he alluded to could be just about it for the year up to March 2017. At this stage we will want to resist to assume that government may take the highly undesirable route in public finance management of carrying out projects off budget. At the top of the list of things that were conspicuously absent from Matambo’s speech was a definite total amount of the ESP.

The expectation was for Matambo to clearly spell out how much is going to be spent under the stimulus package, how many jobs will be created and then give us estimates on its contribution to the flagging economic growth. In the absence of these absolute targets, government seems to be shying away from accountability. Without clear deliverables in place, it will be unfeasible to measure the benefits derived from the use of the taxpayers’ funds or even justify dipping into government‘s financial savings. 

If government cannot clearly spell out measurable deliverables under the ESP, we fail to comprehend how they are going to manage and control the use of the financial savings, which would have otherwise been meant for the next generation.

We would also have expected the minister to tell the nation exactly how much from the P35 billion government has in savings, will be used to finance stimulus projects.  With a deficit of P6 billion, the absence of how much the ESP is worth or how much will be drawn down from the Government Investment Account leaving room for national savings to be used for just about anything, including procurement of arms or fighter jets.

 

While the economy is estimated to have grown by a mere one percent in 2015, the slowest pace since 2008, the budget deficit is at a cumulative P10 billion for the past two fiscal years. Now, we question the wisdom of prioritising defence spending. It appears absurd.

Today’s thought

“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”

 

- H. James Harrington