Treasury Minister, Charles Abel, said supporting government agencies with their rentals, has always been a major cost to the government.
He also said previous attempts to get government departments and agencies, to operate out of one central government office location, has had its unique challenges, in that there has always been push-back by Government agencies themselves, preferring to be housed in rented offices.
The Treasurer explained in doing so they had come up with a budget in saving a K100 million in rent.
“We are now finding that the budget has got some shortfall so it is one of the issues that we are addressing in the supplementary budget.
We are doing our best to find some funding to catch up on the rent. Until we increase the funding on the supplementary budget allocation, it is difficult to spend money because it is unbudgeted for,” said Mr Abel.
Mr. Abel’s comments come after the appointment of a technical team led by Chief Secretary to Government, Isaac Lupari, to assess if all rental offices are being utilised efficiently, to perform the work of the government.
