A week's grace for the new ministers: the 2027 budget moves from Friday to 6 November, and the Vice-President says the government is 'still working on it'

The budget will not be read on Friday. News Diggers reported on Wednesday 28 October that Vice-President Mutale Nalumango told the National Assembly the presentation of the 2027 national budget had been moved from 30 October to 6 November, saying the government was "still working on it". The report says she made the announcement on Tuesday while winding up debate on the motion to dissolve, realign and create ministries, after Shiwang'andu MP Stephen Kampyongo raised the budget during the debate. The rest of the report sits behind the paper's paywall and could not be read in full.

Only four days earlier the timetable had looked settled. In her business statement on Friday 24 October, reported by News Diggers the same day, the Vice-President said the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Situmbeko Musokotwane, would present the budget on Friday 30 October; that the Speaker, Nelly Mutti, would within seven days suspend the business of the House for ten working days of sector budget analysis; and that business would resume on 24 November. She also said she would move a motion on Thursday 29 October to suspend Standing Order 25 so the House could sit from 14:15 on the Friday until the budget business was concluded. With the presentation moved a week, the suspension and the 24 November resumption will presumably shift too, though no outlet read for this edition had reported the revised calendar.

The case made for waiting

The postponement follows, though no report links the two, a call from Citizens First. The Zambian Observer reported on Tuesday 27 October that the party's spokesperson, Stanley Mhango, had asked the President to postpone the presentation and appoint a full Cabinet first, or else to explain how the government would proceed without ministerial input. He argued that the budget had been put together without line ministers and that a Cabinet named days before the reading could not have taken part in a process that was already closed.

A minister cannot reasonably be appointed on Wednesday to defend a budget he or she has never seen on Friday.
— Stanley Mhango, Citizens First spokesperson, in a statement reported by the Zambian Observer on Tuesday 27 October

Mhango cited Article 116 of the Constitution on collective responsibility and said that while the budget might still pass, a document without ministerial input raised what he called authenticity concerns about public buy-in and ownership of its implementation. As it turned out, the ministers were sworn in on Wednesday and the budget will be read eight days later.

What the Treasury is being asked to do

The week's delay gives the lobbying a little longer to run. The Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research told a press briefing on Monday, News Diggers reported on Tuesday, that the government should not reduce the Pay As You Earn rate in the 2027 budget because the Grow Zambia Agenda needs more revenue, not less. ZIPAR's executive director, Zali Chikuba, also said the institute expected faster progress on open access to the TAZAMA pipeline, which it argues would bring efficiency and transparency to the oil marketing sector, and he defended the Ministry of Finance's two supplementary budgets in one year as a response to information the government did not have when it planned, rather than poor planning.

That position sits awkwardly with what the President told his new ministers on Wednesday. Zambia Monitor reported him saying the government was in a "zero base" situation and that incentives could be granted to investors because PAYE alone would improve revenue. Whether the budget cuts the rate, leaves it alone or widens the base will be known on 6 November.

Sources: News Diggers, “Govt pushes 2027 budget unveiling to Nov 6” (28 Oct 2026); News Diggers, “Musokotwane to unveil 2027 budget on Oct 30” (24 Oct 2026); The Zambian Observer, “CF calls for postponement of budget presentation” (27 Oct 2026); News Diggers, “Don't reduce PAYE in 2027 budget, ZIPAR advises” (27 Oct 2026); Zambia Monitor, “'Zambia, here are your ministers,' Hichilema unveils new cabinet, portfolios (See list)” (28 Oct 2026).