The Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mthuli Ncube is set to present the 2024 National Budget to the National Assembly on Thursday afternoon 30th November.

The presentation is going to be held at the New Parliament Building at Mount Hampden, which was recently officially handed over to the Zimbabwean Government by a Chinese firm.

Ncube is expected to walk a tight rope, amid an unyielding economy compounded by high inflation and dwindling government revenue streams.

Apparently, citizens have demanded that the upcoming 2024 national budget must prioritise social spending by lowering tax rates and bank fees while funding entrepreneurial initiatives, a new survey has indicated.

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) recently surveyed a diverse group of people to determine social spending needs ahead of the 2024 national budget.

This comes as Treasury has signalled that it is dead broke by knocking down a proposed national budget of ZWL$110 trillion by 56,54% for the 2024 fiscal year.

“Scrap or reduce regressive taxes like the 2% tax. Avoid unsustainable tax incentives for already rich multi-national corporates. Lower effective personal income tax rate for those earning below the poverty datum line,” some of the demands from survey participants read.

“Promotion of use of the Zimdollar (ZWL$). The bulk of taxes must be collected in ZWL$, remove or at least reduce all IMTT (Intermediated Money Transfer Tax) on electronic transactions, reduce bank charges.”

The survey involved 5 600 participants from every district and province of the country, from which, women were 3 350, while men were 2 250, according to Zimcodd. Of this number, 357 persons with disabilities participated with 2 967 being youths.

Zwnews