Health ministry bids ZWG89.27 billion for 2027 financial year, expects only 33% from Treasury

THE Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) has bid ZWG89.27 billion for 2027, but Treasury has indicated it will likely allocate only ZWG29.83 billion, about a third of what the sector needs.

Secretary Aspect Maunganidze (pictured) disclosed this last week when he appeared before the Health and Child Care Parliamentary Portfolio Committee to review budget performance from January to September 2026. Maunganidze said the approved annual budget for 2026 was ZWG28.94 billion, with cumulative expenditure sitting at just over 30% utilisation. He revealed that by September, slightly over half of the budget had been released, leaving three months for the balance to come. “While utilisation of released funds is over 90 percent, releases remain unpredictable and inconsistent, a challenge that continues to disrupt planning.” He gave a breakdown of how programmes have performed against their bids. Administration and policy had bid ZWG8.15 billion and received ZWG3.86 billion, representing 47 percent and about 13 percent of the total budget. Public health had bid ZWG3.967 billion and received ZWG1.8 billion, while curative services, which takes the bulk of the health budget, had bid ZWG23.048 billion and received about 39 percent of its bid. Biomedical, science, engineering and pharmaceuticals had bid ZWG2.2 billion and received ZWG150 million, translating to about 70 percent performance on released funds. The Health Service Commission (HSC), which also presented its budget, said its Treasury target for 2027 is $437 million, up 30 percent from $35 million in 2026. In 2026 it was allocated $90 million but only $59 million was released. Of the 2027 target, the operational budget is up 56 percent from $141 million, capital budget is up 48 percent to $211 million, while compensation is down 10 percent due to slow implementation of its new structure. The Commission said it had earmarked $125 million for construction of its headquarters building, a project Parliament previously pushed Treasury to fund but whose progress was deemed unsatisfactory. It had also set aside $22 million for devolution to furnish five new provincial offices and $18 million for digitalization to support an IT-enabled workforce data system for productivity and labour market analysis. Maunganidze said the ZWG89.27 billion bid was informed by priorities that remain primary health care, expansion of rural health centres, scaling up of the Impilo electronic health records system, outreach vehicles for provincial medical directors, immunisation, maternal and newborn health, and health security. He said the ministry anticipates Parliament support to push Treasury to release full allocations and close the gap between budgeting and actual cash disbursements.

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