Treasury takes lion’s share of Minecofin budget

THE Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (Minecofin) will allocate 71 percent of its 2012/13 budget share to its treasury operations if nothing changes in the nation’s draft budget arrangement, the Chamber of Deputies’ committee on budget and national patrimony heard on Tuesday.The Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Pichette Sayinzoga Kampeta, said this while appearing before the committee, along with five of her ministry’s key institutions, to shed light on how government funds will be put to use.The ministry’s total budget share stands at slightly over Rwf209 billion. Minecofin will be allocated Rwf171.2 billion that represents 82 percent of the overall budget allocation.“There is Minecofin as an institution that gets 82 percent (Rwf171, 227,418,695) but Rwf 21.9 billion will be used by Minecofin as a budget agency. Out of 82 percent total budget for 2012/2013, 71 percent will be spent on treasury expenditure,” Kampeta said. Treasury outflows take the largest fraction as the ministry handles other national expenditures on behalf of the State, in addition, to its core mandate.“These [treasury] expenditures include: debt payments; interest payments on debt; peace keeping operations expenditures; net lending expenditures; payment of arrears as well as impromptu expenditures such as unforeseen and urgent expenditures,” Elias Bayingana, the Director General of National Budget in the Ministry, later told The New Times.Kampeta highlighted aspects including the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF), previous budget executions, challenges and current allocations to the five other institutions under Minecofin’s tutelage.According to the breakdown, the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), which is planning a national population census in August, will take Rwf14.1 billion, the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA), Rwf14.6 billion, the Rwanda Public Procurement Authority (RPPA), Rwf1.2 billion, the Public Sector Capacity Building Secretariat (PSCBS), Rwf6.3 billion, and the Capital Market Authority (CMA), Rwf1.5 billion.In the 2011/12 budget, the ministry was allocated Rwf177.5 billion.“As of May 30th, 2012, Minecofin’s budget had been executed at a rate of 97 percent. The remaining three per cent represents debts and salaries due in June, and this implies that the budget will be executed as planned,” Kampeta explained.In terms of challenges, Kampeta noted that even though “imprevus” [unexpected payments] were removed at institutional levels, at the national level, they currently stand at Rwf465 million. The total recurrent budget is Rwf697.34 billion.She explained that the law stipulates that the unexpected payments should be two percent of the recurrent budget and in this case, it should have been Rwf13.96 billion but “because of the challenges we have, in sectors, every year, we let them be but when it come to budget execution, we face difficulties.We realise that whenever we plan for these unexpected payments, people wonder why we set aside this money but when you really start execution without it, it becomes a problem,”. she noted. Kampeta further told lawmakers that another setback her ministry faces is when it allocates money to institutions for specific projects, there are tendencies to divert the funds from their initial or planned use.She said key achievements in the ending fiscal year include the 2011 GDP growth rate estimate which stands at 8.6 percent; developing the national capacity building policy; conducting backward joint budget support reviews (JBSR) and mobilising Rwf297 billion in the budget support for 2012-13, and implemention of the electronic Single Window System (eSWS). SWS is meant to facilitate international trade by speeding up and simplifying information flows between traders and government institutions.The 2012/13 draft national budget recently presented to Parliament by Finance Minister John Rwangombwa, is Rwf1,378.4 trillion. It represents 29 percent of the country’s nominal GDP.It reflects an additional Rwf 184.2 billion compared to the current budget of Rwf1, 194.2 trillion.