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| National |
| Parliament reconvenes August 30 for budget |
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by
Gedion Munthali, 13 August 2004
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11:29:13
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The National Assembly resumes sitting for three weeks on August 30 for the 2004/2005 budget
“Unless there are other changes, the sitting will be for three weeks for the budget,” said a parliamentary official yesterday.
Seven days before the meeting all members of Parliament will start a week-long budget training at Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre.
“The meeting funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (Cida) is basically meant to prepare members of Parliament for the budget sitting,” said the official. “If they are going to make meaningful contributions to the budget, then they must be ready for it.”
The Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama) has estimated that the total expenditure in the 2004/2005 budget is likely to be around K80 billion based on cash flow figures.
Ecama spokesman Perks Ligoya said the figure is arising from an amount of K20 billion which has already been taken up in one quarter but Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said it was too early to tell his total budget because negotiations are still going on with donors and key stakeholders.
“It is difficult to tell now because negotiations are still going on,” said Gondwe former head of the African Department at the International Monetary Fund.
Ligoya challenged the new administration to reverse the trend that has kept squeezing Malawi against the wall of poverty for the past ten years, by among other things prioritising expenditure in the forthcoming budget towards poverty reducing activities.
He expressed concern that during the previous budget K29 billion was allocated for pro-poor expenditures, but government ended up spending K27 billion, while statutory expenditures were allocated K10 billion, but K14.7 billion was spent. Statehood activities were allocated K2.7 billion, but actual expenditure came to K12. 7 billion.
The British Department for International Development (DFID) has also challenged the new government to “demonstrate that it is genuinely different from the previous one” to attract budgetary support from donors.
“In the mean time it is essential that the Budget for 2004/05 keeps expenditure to the absolute minimum and that – for once – the Government sticks to its own Budget,” said DFID Malawi Economic Advisor Alan Whitworth during a seminar on Wednesday on Malawi Fiscal Crisis.
Opposition parties — MCP and PPM — said two weeks ago they expect a budget that deals with the aspirations of the people.
“The budget must meet the aspirations of the people. We are coming from an administration which promised everything, and did very little. But MCP and PPM will not be involved in ‘vendoring’ of MPs during the budget to allow things that are not good to the people,” said MCP president John Tembo.
Tembo and PPM president Aleke Banda made it clear they will not allow the UDF to use them for any agenda they may have against Mutharika. They were asked if they may close ranks with disgruntled members of UDF to sabotage the budget during the next sitting of Parliament.
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