xhosa machiavelli: 'Enact planning and budget law'

By TEDDY KUYELA
A CONSORTIUM of 10 civil society organisations (CSOs) has urged Government to expedite the process of enacting the Planning and Budget Bill, to ensure transparency and accountability in the budgeting process.
The CSOs are Action Aid Zambia, Caritas Zambia, Centre for Trade Policy and Development, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR), Council of Churches in Zambia and Economics Association of Zambia. Others are Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, Participatory and Ecological Land Use Management, Platform for Social Protection Zambia and the Zambia Civic Education Association.
Last year, Parliament adopted the report of the Committee on Estimates that, among other issues, proposed the enactment of the Planning and Budget Bill into law.
CSPR programmes manager Isabel Mukelabai said the Ministry of Finance should, as a matter of urgency, take the Planning and Budget Bill to Parliament for enactment into law to ensure transparency and accountability in the budgeting process.
Ms Mukelabai said this in Lusaka on Tuesday when she read on behalf of the CSOs, the proposals on the tax and non-tax revenue policy submitted to the Ministry of Finance for the 2013 national budget.
She also said the ministry should set aside funding in next year?s budget for the establishment of the Parliament Budget Office to kick-start the process.
?The coalition therefore commends Government for opening up the budgeting process to the public and CSOs and we welcome this opportunity to make contributions to the revenue side of the budget, looking particularly at tax and non-tax revenue measures for the 2013 national budget,? she said.
She said a wider consultative process is desired to instil a sense of ownership and enhance accountability of the budgetary process.
Ms Mukelabai said the current legal framework could have served the country well in the past but the situation is no longer the same because of the increasing number of groups demanding a participatory budgetary process.
The CSOs have also recommended that Government should re-introduce windfall tax to enable the country to generate enough revenue from mineral resources.
Ms Mukelabai said Government should also stop treating mineral royalty as an expense when computing corporate tax, as this will result in increased corporate tax revenue from the mines.
The CSOs have also recommended to Government to increase export duty on copper and cobalt concentrates from 10 percent to 20 percent, to discourage the export of mineral concentrates and allow for value addition in the manufacturing and extractive industry.
They also recommended that Government increases company tax rate for mining companies holding large mining licences from 30 percent to 35 percent, to align the company tax for mining companies with firms in other sectors that pay the same tax at 35 percent.