Finance Minister asks for extra K6 billion to hire teachers
Finance, Economic Planning and Development Minister Goodall Gondwe has asked parliament to approve an extra k6billion to enable the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology recruit primary school teachers.
The minister made the request before parliament went into committee of supply through which various monetary allocations to various ministries and departments are scrutinised before approval.
“Since 2013 about 10,500 teachers have been trained, but the government has been struggling to employ them.
“The extra amount is very crucial since it will enable the government to hire these teachers who are needed immediately in various schools across the country,” Gondwe said.
He, however, told the house that other requests for high allocations to various departments and ministries would not be honoured because there were no resources to satisfy the requests.
“During the cluster meetings there were several requests to increase budgetary allocations to various ministries and departments, but we do not have the resources to support that.
“On Constituency Development Fund, we are proposing that it should be increased by K2million only this financial year to ensure that the resources are used for their intended purposes,” he said.
He also proposed that resources should be allocated to every constituency to drill at least five boreholes per constituency per year starting this year.
Parliament has since gone into committee of supply through which budgetary allocations to various ministries and departments are vetted before approval.
The House started meeting in May to scrutinise the K1.3 trillion budget for 2017/18 financial year.
