MPs raise concern over low districts’ spending

MEMBERS OF the Lower house have urged the government to tackle reasons behind slow implementation of the current national budget for the financial year 2016/17. The recommendation was reached after a parliamentary report showed that spending in districts is at less than 50 per cent, two months to the end of the fiscal year. Put together by members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on National Budget and Patrimony after touring all the country’s 30 districts in February, the report indicates that execution of budget by districts in general stands at 46 per cent of the planned activities for both recurrent and development budgets are considered. The legislators found that recurrent budget for districts, such as money to pay staff and buy supplies, had been used at 55 per cent of the planned expenditure while development budget, such as for building roads and other forms of infrastructure, had been executed at 34.7 per cent. It’s an unacceptable rate given the remaining time to the end of the fiscal year and the government needs to move fast to address the issues behind the delays in implementing the country’s budget as planned, the legislators said. “The execution is really at a low level,” said MP Constance Mukayuhi Rwaka, the chairperson of the Standing Committee on National Budget and Patrimony. Her report to the plenary presented on Monday and Tuesday highlighted that the Ministry for Finance and Economic Planning takes long to release funds meant for districts’ activities. But that’s mostly because the ministry also gets the bigger bulk of the funds from taxes mainly paid at the end of March every year, just three months before the closure of the financial year. The MPs advised the government to revise the law to ensure that the taxes— mostly income, rental, and trading license taxes —should be paid at an earlier date in the fiscal year in order to enable implementation of what is planned in the annual budget. “Most Rwandans pay taxes end March. We need a law that brings taxes to an earlier date in order to fast-track execution of projects in line with the budget,” Mukayuhi told journalists on Tuesday, shortly after presenting her report in Parliament. The RRA Commissioner-General Richard Tushabe later told The New Times that bringing the payment of the taxes to an earlier date would be fine for the tax collection body”. But he also explained that there is a reason why the date to pay the taxes was set as March 31 of every year. He said that it’s because a year of business ends on December 31, and taxpayers are given three months until their tax declarations and pay their levies in line with how their business operated in the past year. “I believe in policymakers and we are ready to implement whatever will be decided if the law is to be changed. We will support what will be decided and implement whatever changes that will be made to the law because for us we implement the law,” Tusabe said in a brief interview on phone. The total government budget for the current financial year stands at slightly over Rwf1.9 trillion, with 55.6 per cent of the funds coming from taxes. MPs’ findings about budget execution in districts will be discussed with officials from the central government early next month as part of the analysis of how the budget for the current financial year was executed and how the next fiscal year’s budget should be planned. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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MPs raise concern over low districts’ spending