Harare, Zimbabwe, The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Wildlife has raised alarm over the Ministry’s failure to fully utilise its 2025 first-quarter budget, warning that the shortfall is crippling the delivery of key environmental and climate services.
According to the committee’s report tabled in the National Assembly, the ministry was allocated ZWG$516.8 million for the year, with a target of spending ZWG$163.4 million in the first quarter.
However, only ZWG$16.01 million was spent just 9.8 percent of the planned expenditure.“The low budget absorption rate reflects severe cash flow challenges and delayed disbursements from Treasury, which undermined the ministry’s operational capacity,” the report noted.
The bulk of the ministry’s allocation was directed to environmental management (ZWG$213.2 million) and climate and weather services (ZWG$207.8 million).
Yet, these critical programmes suffered from underfunding, with Programme 2 (Environment and Natural Resources Management) spending only ZWG$5.6 million against a ZWG$65.3 million target, while Programme 3 (Weather, Climate and Seismology) utilised ZWG$6.7 million of its ZWG$79 million target.
The committee also highlighted governance and operational challenges, including a 30 percent vacancy rate, particularly in operational and support roles, which is hampering service delivery.
While 57 percent of directors are women showing progress towards gender equit the shortage of staff at lower levels remains a major setback.
Other concerns include the lack of a functional ministry website, inconsistent reporting on carbon trading agreements, and the irregular transfer of funds from the Forestry Commission to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), which contravened Treasury Instructions.
On a positive note, the ministry managed to develop three new policies and signed five mult
