By Neo Kolane
The Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL) and Nedbank Lesotho on Wednesday hosted a post budget speech gala dinner.
This after the 2024/25 fiscal budget presented by the minister of finance and development planning, Retṥelisitsoe Matlanyane, earlier that day.
The managing director of Nedbank Lesotho, Nkau Matete, said this year the gala was different as the panel consisted of other ministers who were there to support Matlanyane.
Matete said the private sector and investors tried to understand the policy direction that the government of the day wants to pursue.
“The budget should also bring interest to ordinary citizens, orphans, the elderly, and all the other disadvantaged people,” he noted.
On his part, local independent economist Dr Ratjomose Machema said the national budget is a policy direction for the government for different sectors.
It also helps understand the role of government on how to handle the vulnerable and marginalised groups.
He pointed out that the announced budget contained some notable achievements like redefining of programmes within the Midterm Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
Machema indicated that this year, the programmes had been defined along key priority areas under the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP).
“It is important because the key criticism the government has received over the years was that the budget was not aligned with the National Strategic Development Plan.
“There is a budget and programmes taking place in different ministries but we do not know what the government is achieving or what its agencies are doing in regards to the NSDP,” Machema said.
One other guiding principle is to magnify the footprint of the private sector by diminishing significantly that of government and limiting its activities to the provision of regulatory activities that promote the sector.
“It is uplifting to note that Dr Matlanyane has made it known that government will take steps to reduce the participation of government in business,” he pointed out.
Matlanyane said during the midterm budget review in September 2023 that it became apparent that implementation had been a problem because six months into the financial year, not much had been done.
She revealed that some civil servants were still learning how procurement laws work, but they were prepared to do things differently.
In that case, public officials had budgeted for what they thought was necessary but not necessarily aligned to the NSDP.
“We tried to rectify those mistakes from last year, by having an integrated budgeted framework to plan this current budget.
“We started with NSDP then growth, which was then followed by poverty reduction, which will lead to a decrease in crime.
“We therefore, put growth as a target because the budget is drawn on the basis of targets of growth and jobs as a second target,” Matlanyane explained.
She added that the ministry had identified agriculture, tourism, and trade and industry as sectors that can help achieve national economic growth.
