Times Of Swaziland: BROKE GOVT PUMPS IN E690M LOANS TO ICC

BROKE GOVT PUMPS IN E690M LOANS TO ICC
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 BY KWANELE DHLADHLA  on 29/11/2017 04:41:00


MBABANE – The self confessed broke Swazi Government has spent a total of E756
million on construction of the International Convention Centre (ICC) while six
other capital projects received nothing at all.
Out of the total amount of money invested in the construction of the state of
the art multimillion developments, E691 million was sourced from loans while
only E65 million was sourced locally.
Projects that had nothing being released towards their implementation despite
having been budgeted for include, support to the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), water harvesting small and medium dams, support to education
and training and an agriculture survey among others.
Budget
This has been revealed in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development
second quarter budget report whose capital budget allocation stood at E1.3
billion which was 23 per cent of total government capital budget.
The ministry, reported that E1.116 million had been released/ committed and out
of it E1.077 million had been spent, which was 87 per cent of the budget.
“The high expenditure is mainly due to the construction activities of the
convention centre which are currently at peak. However, implementation with some
projects remains at a very low implementation rate due to the cash flow
situation at the Treasury Department and this has affected implementation of
projects on the ground,” disclosed the ministry.
It was also mentioned that budget release for the Microprojects Infrastructure
programme totaling E180 million had been approved but they had only received E20
million at close of the second quarter. It was explained that this had led to
most activities under the programme being stalled.