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| National |
| Jumbe trims NIB, OPC allocations |
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by
Joseph Langa, 29 July 2003
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07:46:55
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Finance Minister Friday Jumbe has reduced budgetary allocations to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), state houses and the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB).
The decision has been made after some pressure from the civil society and the budget committee, who questioned the rationale of putting huge allocations in the three offices.
Jumbe told the House as he was winding up his budget speech Monday, the allocation for the OPC has been reduced by K190 million while the allocations for NIB and state houses have been trimmed by K33 million and K2 million respectively.
The NIB rose to K158 million this year from K60.3 million last year while the OPC had K868,709,000 this year from K485,165,000 last year.
The finance minister’s statement received an applause from the opposition benches notably leader of opposition Gwanda Chakuamba and budget committee chair Louis Chimango who were heard applauding government for “responding positively”.
Jumbe told the House that the money deducted from the three institutions has been allocated to the Ministry of Transport for the construction of rural roads and the Ministry of Education for the purchase of teaching and learning materials and the activities of the Malawi Institute of Education.
According to Jumbe, the Ministry of Education, which got a lion’s share in the whole budget, will be allocated K150 million of which K30 million will go to the institute of education while rural roads will have a share of K75 million.
Responding to a question on why the NIB got almost three times more than last year, Jumbe in an interview said the allocation rose sharply because this year’s budget has included salaries, which were previously paid under the OPC.
Overall, Jumbe claimed his budget still favours pro-poor expenditures (PPEs) because they have been allocated a total of K12 billion this year compared to K10 billion.
Jumbe apologised to the House for errors and irregularities in some of the budget documents, which some members especially from the opposition, pointed out. He said the errors, which have been corrected, were due to calculation and typing problems.
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