By Arnold Chasaya
Government has increased constituency development fund (CDF) allocation for 2024 to K30.6 million—from the current K28.3 million.
“Madam Speaker, to ensure that more resources are directly provided to communities for local development, including basic services such as clean and safe water, maternity wings, and school desks, I propose to increase the allocation to CDF to K4.8 billion. With this increase, each constituency will receive K30.6 million from the current K28.3 million,” announced the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Situmbeko Musokotwane.
Dr. Musokotwane announced the increase on Friday September 29, 2023, in the capital, Lusaka, when he presented the 2024 national budget to the National Assembly.
The minister, who described CDF as a game-changer, added that “As at [the] end of August 2023, a total of 3,132 classrooms were built under the CDF.”
The ambitious increase comes at a time when many constituencies across the country have been seen failing to identify and dedicate CDF towards their respective competitive edges.
This failure has caused some of the constituencies to spend the funds on duplicate, expensive equipment, such as graders—which many of them do not even need to buy.
For instance, why would two constituencies sharing boundaries buy the same equipment separately?
Need for plan-based CDF allocation
One of the notable objectives of the 2024 national budget is to reduce government expenditure, which, according to Dr. Musokotwane, directly translates into fiscal discipline.
“Madam [Speaker], I am happy and proud to report that in the two years that this Administration has been in office, fiscal discipline has been very high. As I just reported, revenues and expenditures are nearly spot on as authorised by this august House,” he announced.
Talking of discipline. Is it discipline when a parent dishes out huge sums of money to his or her children without asking what their respective, immediate financial priorities are?
That’s where the issue is. Before the Government allocates a penny to any constituency for its development, it needs to compel the requesting constituency to undertake a development needs assessment.
This requisite assessment should understand threats, opportunities, areas of urgency, and identify possible project benefits.
The assessment should also produce a baseline document (which will act as a reference point after implementation), in addition to, finally, producing a justifiable, itemized budget.
Once these steps have been exhausted, that’s when the Government can decide how much a particular constituency actually needs for its development projects.
The Government should also make it a tradition for every constituency to produce progress reports either quarterly or after every fiscal year.
These reports should be a solid basis for releasing or not releasing additional funding to complete projects which would have not been completed.
Until such measures are introduced by the Government, the so-called fiscal discipline would be a far-fetched idea, which will only exist on paper.
In addition to strengthening fiscal discipline, plan-based CDF allocation will help ensure that the funds are allocated to projects that align with the central government’s priorities and timelines.
Otherwise, the current Good-Samaritan’s CDF allocation approach promotes only impulse shopping among constituencies.