Harare — FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti had to slash by 733 percent "outrageous" bids by line ministries to align them with fiscus resources.

Presenting the 2010 National Budget Minister Biti said bids by line ministries, departments and parastatals had totalled US$12 billion. This had to be cut by 733 percent in line with projected revenue of only US$1.4 billion in 2010.

"Line ministries, departments and parastatals bids amounted to US$12 billion. Clearly, there is limited capacity to finance such high magnitudes of expenditure demands.

"As can be deduced from the macro-economic framework, the maximum tax revenue collections will be around US$1.4 billion," said Minister Biti.

He said the mismatch between bids and available resources reflected the gap between demand, expectations and the inelastic fiscal space.

Minister Biti said he had no choice but to re-scale the requirements to sustainable levels while ensuring resources are directed to critical areas in line with international standards on sectoral expenditure.

In line with available resources education got a 22 percent share, wage bill 30 percent, health 15 percent, agriculture 10 percent, capital development 30 percent and one percent to research, science and development.

These would be funded from the US$2,250 billion 2010 National Budget, which earmarked US$1,678 billion for recurrent expenditure and US$571 million for capital expenditure programmes.

Minister Biti was conservative in his allocations taking cognisant of the challenges the country is facing in mobilising financial resources.

This also runs in the trail of the performance of the national revenue collector, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, which managed cumulative total of US$685 million against target of US$789.8 million for the period January to the end of October 2009.

Value Added Tax missed its target, managing US$268.9 against targeted revenue of US$270,9 million while collections from customs duty totalled US$179,2 million against a target of US$211,4 million.

This revenue head missed target despite the fact that VAT collections had risen progressively since the adoption of the multi-currency regime.

Minister Biti said revenue collections under the excise duty revenue head fell short of target because customs duty on raw materials, intermediate and capital goods was reduced in the Mid Term Policy review.

Pay As You Earn also fell short of target by US$13 million after raking in US$104 million while Corporate Tax, with only 4 percent of total revenue, missed a collection target of US$61,1 million.

The Excise Duty revenue head collections amounted to US$44,6 million, US$2 million short of the targeted collections for the period under review.

Other tax revenues amounted to US$23,5 million against targeted revenue of US$30,2 million.