BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– Deputy Prime Minister’s Office has requested the House of Assembly to approve their budget amounting to E850 094 896.
This was revealed in the report of the Portfolio Committee of the DPM’s office on the ministry’s annual performance report for the financial year 2022/2023 and the budget estimates for the financial year 2023/2024.
The amount requested for approval comprises of E846 692 896 for recurrent expenditures and E3 402 000 for the capital projects.
In the reporting period under review, the Committee sat twice. The first meeting was when the actual debate took place in the House of Assembly Chamber on March 14, 2023 and was held in the Parliament Main Conference Room.
In the report, the DPM Themba Nhlanganiso Masuku motivates the approval of his office budget by highlighting what the office has done.
Worth noting the Office is entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating Social Welfare, Children, Gender and Family Issues, Disability Issues and Disaster Risk Reduction, mitigation and response issues.
“Chairperson, the office was allocated a total budget of E756 227 140 of which E6 million was a capital investment for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities Home in Mankayane.
“Out of the total allocation, a sum of E755 907 145 was released for expenditure, of which E611 139 807 was spent resulting in a variance of E144 736 093 which is 19 per cent. A large balance of the released funds is meant to pay grants for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities for the remaining period. The Office will incur over expenditure emanating from the OVC and Elderly Persons due to the limited budget that was allocated,” read the DPM’s preamble.
The preamble further reports that the office continued to focus on social safety needs intervention programmes arising from various causes such as storms, food insecurity, heat waves, drought, economic shocks among others. The Vulnerability Assessment Analysis (VAA) pointed out that 182 000 which is 16 percent of the population were food insecure between June to September, while it significantly increases to a cumulative 258 800 people between October and March.
“Mitigating the food challenge, the Kirsh Foundation was utilised through cash-based transfers of an amount of E71 858 400 of the E92 million received thus reaching out to 18 556 households with 92 780 beneficiaries which are chronic food insecure since its inception. “The Finnish Red Cross and European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid has served a total of 10 933 households, with 65 691 people mainly in the Lubombo and Shiselweni regions through cash transfers,” read the preamble in part.
