Analyst Dulani faults Mutharika’s inconsistent position on donor aid: Malawi Parliament meets Feb 22
University of Malawi’s Chancellor College-based political analyst Dr Boniface Dulani has faulted and attributed President Peter Mutharika’s failure to win back budgetary support to his inconsistent position on the issue of donor aid.
Dulani also told Malawi’s flagship daily, The Nation’s Political Index that the country’s economic policies continue to make the nation unattractive investment destination with Malawians heavily squeezed with punitive taxes making domestic savings and investment impossible.
“On the issue of the President’s failure to win back donor support, I believe one of the main contributing factors has been his inconsistent position on the issue.
“One moment, the President is pleading with the donors to reopen the aid taps, making promises to meet all conditionalities. A few days later, he goes all macho and claims that Malawi does not need aid. Such inconsistencies and policy failures are certainly not a a good strategy to kick-start the econoy or win back donor support,” says Dulani.
The Zomba-based political analyst also advised the current administration to practice “austerity measures with reality rather than simply by word of mouth”.
He observed that government’s efforts “have been more in speech that in deed”.
However, Dulani patted Mutharika on the back for maintaining a lean Cabinet, claiming government has made some savings through salaries and other benefits that have been foregone.
Dulani furthers advised government to create a conducive environment for both foreign and domestic investors, saying this would lead to job creation and simultaneously widen the tax base and contribute to increased exports.
“For this to happen, the government needs to revisit its business and tax policies. In the year that has just ended, we had to pay punitive taxes for every poor service delivery,” asserts Dulani.
Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe will table revised 2015/16 budget in the August House next month.
Speaker of the National Assembly Richard Msowoya announced that Parliament will reconvene from February 22 to March 18 for the Mid-year budget review and this will be the second meeting of the 46th Session.
The 46th Session of Parliament was initially opened on November 6 2015 by President Mutharika.
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Why aret we so donor focused when God has blessed us with so muh to be self sufficient without donor aid. Its the poverty mentallity blinding Malawi not to see the good it has and focus on winning the donors thats why we are so poor, and are loosing focus. I dont appreciate the fact that wveryone is blaming Muntharika….stop the blame game, have some Balls and lets implement change, change in attitude, change our way of thinking, hatred, malice and start offering solutions. Mr Muntharika I aint a politician but I ready to rescue my beautiful Malawi. God has… Read more »
Malawi need pple with comments 1&2,we can develop with such mentality.
Why do so many posting comments expect the writer of an article to solve all the problems of Malawi or even the World when the point is to highlight a particular problem?
Shallow analysis.
I can’t agree more with what Sapitwa has said.APM has never said we don’t need donors as a country.Some of these so called analyst just want to make noise in order to be seen as intelligent people,particulary lecturers from Chanco.
Why should a whole Dr. teaching at a university start mourning about donors not coming back to aid the country’s economy instead of coming up with suggestions/solutions that will make our economy strive without assistance from donors? A political analyst, my foot. Going by the comment made by my brother above, why can’t this lecturer encourage Malawians to honour and maintain tax remittance unlike the tendency seen of not being truthful and patriotic? In actual fact people like him are the ones who are in the forefront shouting the loudest that people are paying exorbitant taxes instead of civic educate… Read more »
The issues listed do not need a Political Analyst to give us his/her views. Anyone without a Bachelors Degree can analyze the situation as it is. I have followed Mutharika on the issue of the Donors but I cant recall him saying that Malawi does not need Donors. I can recall him saying that Malawians needed to be resilient and endure hardship as Donors were no where coming back soon. This did not suggest in any way that his position was to never again liaise with the Donors to resume aid; no. What I picked from him on advising Malawians… Read more »
I like your comment sapitwa