FINANCE and National Planning Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has said the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) access guidelines will be simplified to allow constituencies make decisions with minimum approvals from the ministry of Local Government and Rural Development headquarters in Lusaka.
Dr Musokotwane said the guidelines would be simplified to enhance the uptake of allocations under the fund.
“The system will be reengineered to ensure that communities are given an opportunity effectively utilise the CDF. The issue is that management of the fund has been centralised in Lusaka and Government has not paid attention to rural areas over the years,” Dr Musokotwane said.
He was speaking when he featured on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview programme in Lusaka yesterday.
Dr Musokotwane said in the medium to long term, the Government was working to correct the situation where children in rural areas were still sitting on the floor and learning in classrooms made out of wood and mad.
“We cannot have a situation where our children are learning without access to basic services like clean drinking water and communities lacking access to health care, we have to correct this,” he said.
In the 2023 National Budget, Dr Musokotwane proposed an increase in the CDF from 25.7million this year to K28.3million for all the country’s 156 constituencies.
In emphasising on the action, Dr Musokotwane said this was because the CDF was designed to address poverty in the rural areas.
