THE education sector will not be affected by any budget cuts, says Acting Education Secretary Uke Kombra.
Kombra said the Government is fully obligated to the health and education sectors. Yesterday, Kombra said while he understands and knows that there are cash flow problems faced by the country, the department is making internal adjustments to cater for critical areas. He said the education sector is still expecting full appropriation from finance and has assured that tuition fee free funds will still be given. He said this in the light of a presentation by one of his finance officer that there are possible budget cuts due to unreleased warrants that have caused uncertainty in the department. The acting secretary brushed aside the feeling of uncertainty as not an issue and described the flow of warrants as pretty slow. Acting first assistant secretary finance Stewart Sikaras last week told education stakeholders that the department may be faced with possible budget cuts. He said the cuts are not a confirmation from finance and treasury but due to warrants not arriving in the department. The officer stressed to education stakeholders, including donor agencies, that the financial situation is also felt in other departments as well. "There are possible funding gaps, as a result of possible funding cuts," the officer said. He told stakeholders that there was no feedback from the Finance Department. Even for the past three months, there were no warrants released to the Education Ministry. During the presentation on recurrent and development budgets, the financial advisor explained that annually, K1.14 billion was allocated to the department. Just over 50 per cent is for tuition fee free education. Furthermore, K500 million is in the department’s accounting system, with expenditure standing at K364 million. It was also pointed out that what is available in the system is K55 million. Those are excluding unreleased warrants from the finance department. It is anticipated the possible cuts may fall to the tune of over K200 million. Furthermore, Mr Sikaras said implication of the cuts means will have adverse effects on the implementation of the education programs. One such is the implementation of the much talked about standards based curriculum roll out. SOurce: Post Courier
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