ZIMBABWE is expected to post a marginal US$30 million budget surplus for 2011 as the country continues to reverse years of huge deficits by getting a grip on its ever tenuous finances.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Wednesday preliminary indications show that revenues up to December 31, 2011 topped US$2, 92 million against total expenditure of US$2, 89 million.
“The Preliminary Annual Statement of Financial Performance 2011 indicates … an overall 2011 Budget surplus of US$30.4 million,” Biti told reporters in Harare.
“This outturn allowed for government to post a small positive opening balance which became available for supporting Budget expenditures in January 2012, mainly salaries and pension payments, at a time when revenue inflows are seasonally low.”
In 2010 the government recorded a surplus of about US$100 million.
Biti said substantive figures for 2011 would be gazetted in February but the preliminary data shows that employment costs at US$1.8 billion accounted for some 64 percent of overall expenditure and took up 62 percent of all government revenues.
Civil service unions this week called a five-day strike to press for across the board pay rises for the government’s estimated 230,000 employees.
The unions want the lowest-paid government officials to earn a minimum US$538 per month, up from the current US$200.
Meanwhile, Biti also said the government would withdraw a further US$110 million from the country’s facility at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support agriculture and various infrastructural development projects in the country.
“The balance in Zimbabwe’s General SDR Allocation Account at the IMF, net of the US$142.1 million owed to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Fund Facility (PGRF) Account, currently stands at US$212 million,” he said.
“This balance is after Zimbabwe’s drawdown of US$50 million in December 2009 and a further US$100 million in February 2010 in support of various infrastructure projects.
“To augment resources allocated in the 2012 Budget, Treasury is withdrawing resources amounting to US$110 million from Zimbabwe’s General SDR Allocation Account at the IMF.”
At least US$40 million will be used for “priority” infrastructure projects while US$30 million will go towards lines of credit for the country’s productive sectors which are currently operating at low capacity.
“US$20 million (will go) towards the US$100 million announced in the 2012 Budget in support of augmenting the US$7 million already available in the Reserve Bank for its Lender of Last Resort mandate,” Biti said adding that US$20 million would be used to complement previously announced support for agriculture.