THE Government expects to reduce on donor dependence and as such will concentrate on diversifying the economy and accelerating the domestic revenue base, Secretary to the Treasury Likolo Ndalamei has said. According to the 2011 budget and 2011 to 2013 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) that was released by Mr Ndalamei, he said in line with Zambia’s vision of becoming a prosperous middle income country by 2030, the state should gear itself to stop donor dependence.
“It is expected that aid dependency should reduce over time and this requires economic growth and diversification to be accelerated and sustained while the revenue base is expanded. This is also important in light of heightened unpredictability of cooperating partner resources over the recent past,” Mr Ndalamei said.
Over the medium term, development assistance would play a pivotal role in the development process of the country considering the development challenges faced.
He said that the Government, in collaboration with the cooperating partners was in the process of developing a new Joint Assistance Strategy for Zambia (JASZ) within the framework of the Paris Declaration so that it could succeed the one developed for the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP).
“This strategy will not only be used to manage and harmonise arrangements with cooperating partners but also guide and monitor their overall performance. At the same time, the Government will continue to place strong emphasis on strengthening public financial management to ensure that all resources both domestic and external are utilised in an accountable, efficient and transparent manner,” Mr Ndalamei said.
He also said that estimates of development assistance provided in the fiscal year were based on the indicative commitment by the cooperating partners. Mr Ndalamei, however, said that it ought to be noted that grants from cooperating partners were subject to change because at the time the MTEF was being prepared, some partners had not yet made firm commitment for the medium term.
On the new projects to be undertaken during the Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP), he said that the Government would work with cooperating partners to establish a system of candidate project selection that would ensure strict alignment to national development priorities under the SNDP.
[Times of Zambia]