ZIMBABWE- The Ministries of Mines and Mining Development and of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development yesterday said they were disappointed with the allocations they received in the 2014 National Budget as presented by the Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa presented a US$41 billion Budget in December, where he identified mining and agriculture as critical sectors in economic revival.

Agriculture and mining are key components of Zim-Asset, the country's five-year development plan.

In oral evidence to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy, Secretary for Mines Professor Francis Gudyanga said the ministry was allocated US$8,6 million, most of which would go to salaries.

"The inadequacy of the 2014 Budget allocation will inevitably reduce the revenue generation capacity of the ministry as it would be an impediment towards of the desired objectives as pronounced in the Zim-Asset and the Budget statement," he said. He said the ministry got US$976 000 for its operations out of a requested US$28,79 million.

Prof Gudyanga decried Government's failure to fund the Mining Promotion Corporation, established to lead exploration of mineral resources, saying this resulted in the country failing to come up with an accurate database of its mineral wealth.

"The Budget statement underscores the need to operationalise the Mining Promotion Corporation in order to carry out extensive exploration countrywide so that we can expand our mineral base to guide us on sustainable exploitation. However, there is no Budget allocation towards the operationalisation of this company despite its criticality," he said.

Zimbabwe last carried out a national exploration in 1981, and Prof Gudyanga said the database was outdated. As a result, countries with advanced technologies had more knowledge about the country's mineral wealth than Zimbabweans themselves, he said.

Prof Gudyanga said the ministry was operating with just half of its required staff complement of 624, saying this also affected effective monitoring of the mining sector to prevent leakages.

In his Budget statement, Minister Chinamasa projected that the mining sector would grow by 11,4 percent this year.