The budget will now be transmitted to the Senate when it resumes sitting next week. The House of Assembly also approved amendments to the Appropriation Estimates for the 2011 budget as a result of an increase in civil servants' salaries in July that were not included in the original budget.

It was not a smooth flowing affair as legislators from Zanu-PF and MDC-T engaged in heated arguments over when the budget motion should be debated.
Zanu-PF MPs argued that the motion was deferred to December 13 when the House of Assembly adjourned last week while MDC-T legislators said debate had been postponed to yesterday.

Deputy Speaker Ms Nomalanga Khumalo (MDC) concurred with the MDC-T resulting in the budget motion being debated.

Presenting the report from the Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion, the committee's chairman Cde Paddy Zhanda (Goromonzi North, Zanu-PF) said there was need to give

MPs more time to debate future national budgets through setting fixed timelines in the Public Finance Management Act.

Zhanda commended Minister Biti for coming up with a fair budget under difficult conditions.

"No budget will ever please everyone so the question is how do we grow the cake? I, however, want to applause the minister for coming up with a reasonable budget under difficult conditions," he said.

Zhanda said Minister Biti should have allocated resources to the Constituency Development Fund as it was the only fairest way to allocate resources to constituencies.

"The CDF is the fairest way of distributing capital within all constituencies and the minister should have allocated a mere one percent of the budget to CDF," he said.

Chairperson of the Justice, Legal Affairs, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Mr Douglas Mwonzora (Nyanga North, MDC-T) said the money allocated to the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs and the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry will go a long way in helping them meet their obligations.
He said it was important for the Treasury to inject capital to the Zimbabwe Prison Services.

"The prison services have so many projects and the committee feel there should be an initial capital injection for all ZPS projects like at their farms," he said.

Mr Mwonzora said Treasury was supposed to consider giving enough money to the Judicial Services Commission to carry out its mandate in clearing the backlog of court cases.

Higher Education, Science and Technology Committee chairperson Mr Siyabonga Ncube (Insiza, MDC) said loans and grants allocated in the budget will help students in many ways.

Obert Matshalaga (Zvishavane, Zanu-PF) who was the acting chairperson of the committee on Health and Child Welfare said there was need for Government to stop relying on donor support.

"At least 98 percent of drugs in the country are donor funded, we therefore urge the Treasury to ensure we reduce the high donor dependence on drugs," he said.

"It is also important to note that most of the funding is curative when in actual fact we should have funding for prevention."

In his response, Minister Biti said the challenge was to attract investors and increase the purse for the national budget.

"The resources are not enough, the cake is small, our budget challenge is how do we expand it?" he said.

Minister Biti said most of the country's revenue was going towards salaries and it was important that the nation attracted more investors to increase jobs.

By Special correspondent