Education Budget Worries Parliamentary Committee

Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe walks into
The chamber to present 2015/2016 budget

The promise made by the Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe that enough money is made available in the 2015/2016 Budget for the recruitment of about 10,000 teachers seem to be a mare rhetoric if what the Parliamentary Committee on Education is to go by.

Various Parliamentary Clustered committees  are in their first week of budget scruitny but the education committee has already raised fears that the money allocated to the education ministry is meagre fueling worries that this financial year the ministry will operate effectively including possibility of recruitment of 10 thousand new teachers.

In an interview Chairperson for the committee Dr. Elias Chakwera says the committee in its first day of budget scrutiny has observed with concern that a number of sections in the ministry of education there are shortfalls in terms what the ministry had requested to the treasury and money given to them. 

He pointed out Personal Emoluments vote allocation which has shortfall at around 15.1% yet this is the vote which must have adequate funds to recruit teachers which are about 10,000, he said.

Ministry of Education Science and Technology has his year received K109.8 billion from K90. 8 billion a revision from K81.68 billion last financial year.

"We started with an overview of ministry perspective of what they had asked for and what has been allocated" he said ”In a number of sections there are shortfalls in terms what the ministry had expected and given to them."

Chakwera said the committee noticed that Personal Emoluments vote allocation is short at around 15.1% yet this is the vote which must have adequate funds to recruit teachers which are about 10,000.

The Education Committee chair then indicated that they are going to be looking at subsector by subsector to quantify the shortfall vis-à-vis the expected output which is going to be affected following the short falls.

When presenting the budget Finance Minister honorable Goodall Gondwe mentioned that recurrent expenditure allocation of K674.6 billion, is proposed to increase wages and salaries by an amount that will raise the salaries of the junior grades in the public service. The budget also provides for the recruitment of some 10,500 primary school teachers and 466 secondary school teachers, who are projected to join the civil service during the last quarter of the financial year. 

"These initiatives as well as an annual wage creep scheduled for implementation in December 2016 will raise the wage bill from K198.0 billion in 2014/15 to an estimated K228.7 billion." Added Gondwe