Why beg for funds with 25% of world diamonds?

Health and Child Care portfolio committee chairperson Ruth Labonde has said it is not proper that a country with 25% of world diamond deposits could rely on donors to fund its health budget.

Labonde said that the 2015 National Budget allocation to health was not only below the 15% threshold set by the Abuja Declaration, but also a reduction of the funding to the ministry as it now ranked fifth in terms of allocation. She said the ministry usually received the second or third largest chunk of the budget.

In the same debate, Parliament's Budget and Finance committee chairperson David Chapfika told Treasury to conduct an audit of all civil servants and pensioners currently drawing funds from the fiscus as a means to reduce the government's wage bill.