Finance and Economic Development Minister, Mthuli Ncube revealed that almost half a billion dollar budget surplus was achieved in the first quarter of 2019.
This indicates that public finances are in a healthy state, unlike in previous years when deficits were the order of the day.
In Treasury Bulletin number 31, 2019 released last week, Ncube said that despite the operating environment being still very unstable, the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) has started to bear some fruit. He said:
On a positive note, there is marked improved performance on central Government finances, with revenues at $1,9 billion, outperforming target of $1,8 billion throughout the first quarter of 2019 to give overall positive variance of $146 million.
On the other hand, expenditures were contained at $1,5 billion against a target of $1,7 billion to give savings of $218 million. This, as a result, gave a budget surplus of $443 million.
The increased revenue emanated, in part, from the 2 per cent tax on electronic money transfers;
The performance also benefited from the Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT), which generated an average monthly revenue of $95 million against a target of $50 million.