Britain rules out budgetary support resumption to Malawi

Britain has ruled out resumption of budgetary support to Malawi despite the southern African nation qualifying for IMF extended credit facility.

British High Commission to Malawi Michael Nevin said this after Finance minister Goodall Gondwe presented a K1.2 trillion national budget.

“It is not only in Malawi, we are moving away from this type of support in many countries,” he said.

Gondwe announced that World Bank and European Union are set to resume budgetary support in the course of the new financial year which starts in July.

The Finance Minister said out of the K1.2 trillion, the government will only be able to locally fund the budget up to K965.2 billion and the rest will come from donors.

Gondwe asked the revenue collector, the Malawi Revenue Authority to pull up socks and collect the targetted K708 billion set by the IMF.

”MRA should do more at this crucial moment,” he said.

Opposition Peoples Party spokesperson on finance Ralph Jooma laughed off the budget saying if the government knows it can only finance it up to K965 billion, why has the government pushed it to K1.2 trillion.

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Spokesperson on Finance Kusamba Dzonzi, who is also member of Parliament (MP) for Dowa West described the 2016/17 National Budget as ‘hostile to Malawians and cannot be implemented without donor support’.