Finance minister Mthuli Ncube’s revised 2024 budget is still divorced from the realities of the majority of Zimbabweans who are living from hand to mouth and are facing a tough year ahead due to the El-Nino-induced drought.
Ncube was last week forced to make several revisions to his tax proposals including passport and tollgate fees before the budget was passed by Zanu PF MPs following the expulsion of Citizens Coalition for Change legislators by National Assembly speaker Jacob Mudenda last Thursday.
According to the revised budget, road toll fees will now go up by 50% instead of the 150%, which was announced on November 30.
Standard passport fees were also reduced to US$150 after Ncube initially proposed in his budget speech to increase them to US$200 from the current US$120.
Ncube also revised the 1% wealth tax on home owners by raising the threshold to properties worth at least US$250 000 from US$100 000 he proposed previously.
He said the tax would now be capped at a maximum US$50 000 per year for properties worth over US$5 million.
As from January, toll fees on the Harare to Beitbridge and Plumtree-Bulawayo-Harare-Mutare highways will be pegged at US$3 from the current US$2 instead of the US$5 that the minister had proposed.
Ncube, however, maintained his sugar tax that will have serious implications on many businesses and may even result in job losses as well as inflation.
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It is our considered view that the passport and toll fees remain too high for a country where the majority of the population are considered to be poor.
In 2021, the World Bank said the number of extremely poor Zimbabweans stood at 7.9 million or 49% of the population.
Aid agencies believe that more than half of the population will need food assistance next year due to drought and these are some of the issues that Ncube should have taken into account while crafting the budget.
Zimbabweans are already among the most heavily taxed people in the world and it is insensitive to keep burdening them with more taxes to pay for the government’s failure to live within its means.
Citizens are also paying dearly for the government’s failure to accept the reality that the local currency is not viable at the moment and that the only sensible budget must be US dollar-based.
For a country facing a potentially devastating drought and slow economic growth, a budget that calls for tightening of belts for government might have been more realistic.
