BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Government is now formulating the budget for the financial year 2025/26.
This was revealed by Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg on #FinanceInFocus, a programme within the Ministry of Finance where the minister informs the nation on the country’s financial situation. Rijkenberg said his Ministry was now hard at work because it was time for them to start working on the budget.
The minister mentioned that budget was important for any country and any individual, as it was important to know what money was going to be used. According to the minister, working on addressing the most important things was paramount because resources were always scarce, while needs and wants were infinite.
Such a situation called for proper budgeting to be done so that money could not be spent on unimportant things. Rijkenberg defined budgeting as a process where one would decide what to do with money that was going to be made, mostly in the near future. He said right now, Government planned on how to use money it hoped to make during the year 2025/26.
The minister said they looked at income streams such as SACU and the domestic taxes to be collected by ERS, so that they could have an idea of the revenue that was supposed to be collected in the next financial year. According to the minister, the possible revenue would be compared with the likely expenditure for that year, enabling them to come up with what he referred to as budget ceilings.
He said the budget ceilings would be submitted to Cabinet for approval. He said the ceilings were importance because without them, the budget could be out of control, as the needs were astronomical. Once the ceilings were approved by Cabinet, the minister said circulars would be sent to Ministries so that they could also fit in the needs they would want addressed for that particular financial year.
The Ministries, after identifying the needs, would have to present those needs to the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). The PBC, according to the minister, was made of three Ministries – being the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Service, and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. The minister said the budget itself was made of three elements.
One of those elements was the capital element, which was run by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. The other element was the wage bill, which was usually the third of the budget, and sometimes slightly above the third of the budget. The Ministry of Public Service, according to the minister, was the one responsible for the wage bill. The third element of the budget was the recurrent expenditure, which was managed by the Ministry of Finance, according to Rijkenberg.
The minister said the PBC was chaired by the minister of finance. Minister Rijkenberg said during the PBC presentation, each Ministry could bring its own ceiling and the list of items they had fitted within that ceiling. He said there were instances where a Ministry would want a certain item to be listed within the ceiling, but find that financial constraints would not allow such a situation to take place. According to the minister, discussions would be held under such circumstances, so that the parties involved would find a common ground and see how such items could be fitted, without misusing the available resources.
Once that process was done, the minister said presentations would be submitted to Cabinet, which would also have its input. Once the Cabinet had approved, the budget would be submitted the Finance Portfolio Committees in Parliament, so that legislators could have their input on the budget. Legislators were usually the ones that would pass the budget. The same budget would presented back to Cabinet, so that it would get an idea of what the legislators were thinking of it, before making the final approval.
After that, a Budget Speech would be drawn by the Ministry of Finance for presentation in Parliament (House of Assembly). From there, it would go through all the committees, before going to Senate, where the senators would also have their input, before they passed it. From there, it would be signed by His Majesty the King, before it could be the Appropriation Bill, on which Government could not work to deliver services to the people.
