By Passmore Kuzipa
At Zimbabwe’s recent pre-budget seminar, Parliament heard a revealing admission that has laid bare the profound imbalances in the nation’s fiscal management. While some ministries are still waiting to receive even half of their 2025 allocations, others have already overspent their approved budgets by more than double.
This stark disparity, presented in official figures, has ignited a fierce debate over whether the country’s budget is a document of national priorities or a ledger of political power. The disclosures suggest that ministries linked to the presidency, politics, or security continue to receive preferential treatment, while social sectors fundamental to public welfare such as health, education, and local government struggle to access their allocated funds.
This uneven pattern of disbursement, according to lawmakers and analysts, fundamentally undermines both service delivery and fiscal credibility, deepening the mistrust that has grown between the Treasury and the public it is meant to serve.
The budget, intended as the government’s primary plan for resource allocation, appears to be functioning as a tool for reinforcing political hierarchies, with tangible consequences for communities across the nation.
The numbers presented at the seminar tell a story of two parallel realities within the same government. On one side, well-connected ministries are operating with financial impunity.
The Office of the President and Cabinet, National Housing and Amenities, and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development have all exhausted their 2025 budgets, spending 102 percent, 124 percent, and a staggering 223 percent of their allocations, respectively.
This indicates not merely overspending, but a system where approved budgetary ceilings are effectively meaningless for certain powerful entities.
In stark contrast, key social ministries tasked with delivering essential services are languishing with a fraction of their promised funding. The Ministries of Health and Child Care, Primary and Secondary Education, Energy and Power Development, Higher and Tertiary Education, and Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development have not used more than half of their allocations.
This is not due to a lack of need or projects, but rather a failure by the Treasury to disburse the funds. Particularly alarming is the case of the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, which administers critical devolution funds for local councils. It has received only 36 percent of its budget, a shortfall that has stalled crucial community projects that rely entirely on those funds.
The impact of this funding imbalance is not an abstract fiscal concept; it is felt on the ground in communities across Zimbabwe. A local authority chairperson from Masvingo, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, confirmed that the absence of devolution disbursements has crippled development plans.
“We have not been receiving devolution funds and there are rumours that this is being done to recover costs of the fire tenders received earlier on. This has stalled progress as we are not able to carry out some projects we have budgeted for,” said the chairperson.
This testimony highlights how the budget shortfalls at the national level directly translate into stalled infrastructure, lack of services, and broken promises at the local level, eroding the social contract between citizens and the state.
The systemic implications of these disparities are severe. Commentators argue that this pattern points to a fundamental breakdown in fiscal discipline and transparency.
Fighting Inequality Alliance National Coordinator Nqobizitha Mlambo said the uneven disbursement of funds raises serious questions about the government’s commitment to its own budgetary processes.
“The uneven disbursements of public funds where some ministries get far more than what was approved while others are not getting enough raises red flags about government’s ability to do fiscal discipline and budget credibility. The minister should disburse that which parliament would have approved and in the event that he needs to disburse more than the approved he needs to get back to Parliament for a supplementary budget,” said Mlambo.
He went further, arguing that the overspending in certain ministries while key sectors lag behind is a clear signal that political considerations, not economic need, are the primary drivers of fiscal decisions.
“The budget lacks credibility, how do you spend more in the transport sector but you find critical areas such as the Ministry of Health having utilised 32 percent still far behind the budget? The implication therefore suggests that the budget is not acting as the government’s main financial control tool because spending is happening outside approved limits.
“When ministers exceed their ceilings this signals weak enforcement of spending rules and possible off-budget expenditures or reallocation driven by political priorities rather than economic means because you have to control how ministries expend their money. Fiscal discipline is very weak in Zimbabwe. This weakens citizen participation in the budget making process,” said Mlambo.
He also issued a stark warning about the broader economic consequences, noting that delayed or partial disbursements harm both service delivery and economic growth, while pushing up project costs due to inflation.
“Delayed or partial disbursements do have a negative impact on service delivery and overall economic growth. Ministries responsible for productivity such as Agriculture cannot implement development programmes on time because of delays in disbursements by Treasury. Delays increase project costs due to inflation and exchange rate changes. Private sector investment also declines because companies and contractors working with the government face delays in payments,” he said.
The macroeconomic stability of the nation is also threatened by this skewed allocation of resources. Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) Programme Manager Muchaneta Midzi said the funding imbalance actively fuels instability and worsens the national debt crisis.
“This skewed allocation of resources actively fuels macroeconomic instability and worsens the debt crisis. This is because financing overspending in some ministries through domestic borrowing (Treasury bills) or central bank overdrafts expands the money supply. This devalues the local currency and fuels inflation. The high government borrowing from the domestic market to cover its deficits ‘crowds out’ the private sector by pushing up interest rates. This makes credit prohibitively expensive for businesses, crippling investment and job creation,” she said.
She added that this pattern of unbudgeted spending and reliance on domestic debt has a cascading effect, increasing the country’s debt servicing costs and diverting ever-greater portions of revenue from essential public services to simply paying interest, creating a vicious cycle of underfunding and debt.
In the face of this criticism, Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube has defended the government’s record, arguing that critics overlook progress and paint an unfairly negative picture of key sectors such as health.
“We always try to meet the 15 percent Abuja target, and I assure you that this year we will do the same. Disbursements are one thing, but in terms of the actual ceiling, we will meet the target. I just have one issue when it comes to the narrative about the health sector, there is some schizophrenia. We speak as if the health sector is only the government’s sector. It’s much broader; there are about 80 private hospitals in this country, some offering world-class services. Yet we hear nothing about that. The narrative focuses only on the pain points instead of celebrating the ministry’s successes,” said Ncube.
However, the optimism expressed by the Finance Minister contrasts sharply with the conditions observed in public hospitals, which serve the majority of Zimbabweans. Health experts and civil society groups point to severe, ongoing shortages of staff, drugs, and equipment. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Health faced public outrage after images emerged of accident victims being treated with cardboard boxes as makeshift splints a stark and visceral symbol of how budget shortfalls have crippled service delivery and human dignity.
Despite Treasury’s assurances, the evidence on the ground suggests that chronic underfunding and delayed disbursements continue to systematically undermine Zimbabwe’s commitments under the Abuja Declaration, which mandates that signatories allocate at least 15% of their annual budget to the health sector, as well as the government’s own Vision 2030 goals.
The situation raises a broader, more profound question about governance and priority: can a nation truly prosper when its financial resources are allocated based on political power rather than the fundamental needs of its people? The ongoing struggle of social sectors against the backdrop of well-funded state organs suggests that without a fundamental reorientation of budgetary principles, the goal of equitable development will remain out of reach.
