Less than half of government support to Chipata Municipal Council’s 2016 budget was released by August 31st.
Director of Finance, Edward Sakala says that government only released about 7.6 million Kwacha from about 16 million Kwacha it is supposed to give the local authority.
And Chipata Municipal Council has only managed to generate about 20.9 million Kwacha revenue out of about 38. 2 million Kwacha that is needed to be raised this year.
This came to light during a full council meeting being held at Chipata Municipal Council Chamber today.
Mr. Sakala says the estimated budget for this year was 54,279,301 Kwacha. About 38. 2 million Kwacha was supposed to be raised through local resources while about 16 million Kwacha was supposed to come from National support inclusive of CDF, Constituency Development Fund.
Mr. Sakala says that only about 24.5 million Kwacha has been spent representing 45.16 per cent of the total budget.
Mr. Sakala says the actual revenue amount for this year was about 20.9 million Kwacha with an overall performance of 38.56 per cent against the total budget.
He says the council encountered hiccups in the generation of revenue this year as areas like M’tenguleni did not perform well.
Mr. Sakala says the budget for provision of services to the community was about 23 million Kwacha out of which 5.2 million Kwacha was spent, representing a performance level of 22.57 per cent of the services provision budget.
He explained that this is so because government has set 40 per cent threshold as minimum to be spent on the provision of services to the community as pre budget guidelines.