By BUUMBA CHIMBULUGOVERNMENT needs to improve its fiscal discipline for the second quarter of this year as it projected to be more challenging with reduced revenue collection.It is expected that Government’s fiscal position will worsen in the wake of covid-19, says Public Financial Management Consult, Senior Economist Bright Chizonde.“This notwithstanding, the negative impact on revenue during the first quarter of 2020 were minimized because a greater portion of the economy was still operational.“Government only experienced a decline in Value Added Tax (VAT) while other tax instruments remained resilient,” Mr Chizonde said in a statement yesterday.On the expenditure side, he said, debt servicing and resource requirements to combat COVID-19 were yet to increase.Mr Chizonde said that the depreciation of the Kwacha, was only pronounced towards the end of the first quarter.Government, he said, should therefore take urgent steps to safeguard the fiscus in the second quarter since revenues were expected to reduce further while the exchange […]
‘Improve fiscal discipline’
