From Compliance to Conversion: A Delivery-Oriented Budget Execution Framework for School Infrastructure in Zimbabwe

Abstract

School infrastructure delivery in Zimbabwe has increasingly been constrained not by the mere absence of fiscal intent, but by the inability of public financial systems to convert authorized capital resources into completed educational assets. Within results-based budgeting, such a condition constitutes more than an accounting variance; it represents a failure of public promise, administrative embodiment, and developmental justice. This article advances a delivery-oriented reform framework for capital budget execution in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. The argument is grounded in a mixed-methods analysis of capital expenditure trends, procurement lead times, institutional behaviour, and infrastructure output evidence. A financial utilization rate of 78 percent was recorded alongside a substantially lower physical delivery rate of 13.44 percent, producing a 64.56 percent conversion void. A 285-day procurement cycle was identified as a temporal veto against annual execution, while risk-averse compliance routines were shown to magnify structural delay. It is therefore argued that reform cannot be confined to increased allocations. A redesigned delivery architecture is required, one in which procurement is digitized, readiness gates are enforced, managerial accountability is tied to completed infrastructure, capital funds are permitted limited carryover, and community-driven construction is piloted for less complex projects. The proposed framework is presented as a transition from control-oriented public financial management to delivery-oriented public finance, where value is assessed not by the elegance of procedure alone, but by the visible conversion of fiscal authority into safe, equitable, and functional learning spaces.