Dissecting the key sector allocations in the 2010/11 budget

Human development, social clusters, governance and sovereignty clusters will take the lion’s share of the new financial year’s budget, consuming 31 percent of the entire budget. Of the total budget worth Rwf 984 billion, education under human development and social sector has been allocated the largest amount with Rwf155 billion. This will finance education programs including scaling -up schools construction, teachers’ salaries, capitation grants and schools feeding programs to effectively execute the 9 Year Basic Education program and increase access to education. The health sector comes second under the social sector with Rwf97 billion allocated for programs including supporting the Mutuelle de sante, the health insurance scheme for the population. In principle, the budget essentially is grouped into four clusters; infrastructure, productive sector, human development and social sector as well as the governance and sovereignty cluster. Social Protection and governance was allocated Rwf239 billion to accelerate poverty reduction programmes including increasing Vision 2020 Umurege programmes activities from the present coverage of 60 sectors to 90 sectors in the 2010/11 financial year. While under infrastructure Rwf77 billion has been earmarked for the energy sector programs including scaling -up access electricity programmes in both urban and rural areas. At least 65,000 households are planned to get access to electricity in the 2010/11 financial year. Rwf98billion for transport sector will facilitate among others rehabilitation and extension of several roads including Kigali-Ruhengeri, Butare-cyangugu and Kigali-Gatuna. The productive sector that mainly looks at agriculture will consume Rwf64.8 billion increasing funding for the One Cow per Family Program to fight extreme poverty. The program is targeting to reach 20,000 poor families in the 2010/11 financial year. Wages and salaries Within an envelope of Rwf 540.6 billion for recurrent spending for 2010/2011, wages and salaries will take up 22percent or Rwf120 billion compared to Rwf108 billion in 2009/2010. “This amount will not only allow some increase in salaries but will also finance recruitment of additional teachers and other professionals such as medical specialists, engineers, lawyers, accountants and financial analysts for the civil service,” the Finance Minister said in his budget speech. Exceptional Expenditure: Due to Peace-Keeping Operations and Elections, the exceptional expenditure was raised from about Rwf 55 billion 2009/2010 to Rwf 67 billion in 2010/2011.Specifically the estimate for conducting the forthcoming elections was raised from Rwf5.1 billion to 9 billion to cater for the Presidential and local elections. Capital Expenditure: The allocation for capital expenditure has increased significantly by 11percent from Rwf 356 billion to Rwf 404 billion. This is due to the expected more government spending to boost investments in the airport, the Convention Centre and Rwandair. Ends

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Dissecting the key sector allocations in the 2010/11 budget