Analysis of government expenditure in driving economic growth in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1998

Since 1980, the Zimbabwean economy has not performed well, characterised by averagelydeclining levels of growth and often recording negative economic growth in some years. Variousexplanations have been provided by different scholars including statism (Midgely, 1987; Gilman,2006), excessive government spending (Fan and Rao, 2003), poor economic governance and aseries of ‘wrong’ policy choices (Gilpin, 2008). This research attempted to analyse the role ofpublic spending in driving economic growth over the period. The study focused on determiningthe resource allocation to the three sectors of the economy (safety and security, social andeconomic), identifying and classifying some programmes and projects implemented bygovernment according to the sectoral criteria of safety and security, social and economic, as wellas analysing the nature of the spending between operational and capital investment over theperiod 1980 to 1998. The chosen data was collected and analysed from secondary sources mainlybudget statements, Government of Zimbabwe Socio-Economic Review documents and macroeconomicpolicies. The study found that declining capital investment, increasing recurrentexpenditures, largely dominated by huge defence budget and transfer payments, were amongfactors that reduced the influence of government expenditure in driving economic growth inZimbabwe. Key recommendations were drawn for Zimbabwe to institute budgetary reforms byreducing large defence spending and size of the public sector, and direct limited fiscal resourcestowards the economic sector through capital investment, human capital development andknowledge processes as the imperatives for sustainable long-term growth