The Sunday News
Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Correspondent
THE 2022 National Budget consultations are set to encompass views from remote and rural areas in line with President Mnangagwa’s thrust not to leave anyone behind in development.
Budget consultations are some of the initiatives by Parliament that seek to apply the bottom up approach and enhance citizens participation in decision making. According to an itinerary released by parliament, this year’s budget consultations will cover rural areas like Binga, Maphisa, Umzingwane and Zaka-Jerera. among others.
The 2022 National Budget consultations set to start on 3 October and end on 9 October with four teams from Parliament set to visit s a number of areas to solicit the views of the public, according to the itinerary. An expert in development issues from Binga District, Mr Prince Mathe said the move by parliament to solicit views from remote areas was noble and was feeding into the concept of participatory budgeting.
“Binga is one of the rural districts in Matabeleland North and is associated with high levels of poverty due to socio-economic impediments. The district is associated with high levels of socio-economic inequalities in which women are disadvantaged when it comes to access to resources.
With the outbreak of the global pandemic, Covid-19 Binga has not been spared thus worsening the whole situation in the communities. With the coming in of the budget consultation to us as a district, this is one of the opportunities that we intend to utilise to capacitate our communities and households,” he said.
Mr Mathe said the opportunity will all afford residents the chance to highlight their plight and enhance the socio-economic impediments that are hindering the development of the district.
“In this budget consultation we look forward to seeing the budget taking into consideration the marginalised groups (women, youths, children and people living with disability). Besides this, we intend to suggest that more resources be channelled towards the health and education sector of the district,” he said.
Matabeleland South Senator Themba Mathuthu called on people to embrace this development through active participation.
“It is important that people are not left behind. As such we lobbied as Parliamentarians that these consultations must reach out to remote and rural areas. We hope our people will actively participate so that their wishes are captured in the consultations. It is important to know what our people need and how Government can help them through the budget. We will then consolidate their views and ours in order to help develop our communities,” said Sen Mathuthu. — @nyeve14
