Cama discredits Malawi 2020/21 budget, bemoans new taxes
The Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) has described the Tonse Alliance’s first national budget as empty and a total departure from the litany of promises the Tonse Alliance made prior to the Fresh Presidential Election (FPE) on June 23, 2020.
CAMA executive director, John Kapito, in a statement issued on Saturday, said the 2020/21 National Budget Statement which Finance Minister Felix Mlusu delivered in Parliament in Lilongwe on Friday, does not respond to any economic recovery of the country.
Kapito said it is sad that the budget is not capturing any of the promises the alliance made during the campaign.
“A budget is a commitment and letter of intent with Malawians and most Malawians expected that the new government would do things differently from the previous government. Unfortunately, the current budget statement is unable to articulate key issues that the government needs to pursue in order to resuscitate the ailing economy, it has made a lot of assumptions that are unattainable and completely impossible to achieve when it has ignored the basic things that can generate resources that are key to support many projects and activities that are in the budget,” he said.
Kapito wonders why the budget formulators did not include the universal fertilizer subsidy programme, free electricity and water connection, reduction in passport and driving licenses and the creation of jobs and removal of taxes on some basic goods and services as promised during the campaign.
“Instead, the budget has introduced measures that will hurt many consumers such as the introduction of a new tax on some products such as cooking oil and taxes on winning bets, which has become a new income generator to many unemployed Malawians, most of Malawians are not employed and the increase of the tax threshold will not benefit as many Malawians,” he narrates.
He further states that the budget is selective to benefit a few Malawians and defeats the whole purpose of a Nation Commitment Statement.
The consumer organisation stressed that the budget statement is “completely empty’’ without Tonse Alliance pledged universal fertiliser subsidy, reducing fees for passports, duty free weeks, and zero-connection fees for electricity and water. .
“Malawians are looking for a leadership that is focused, visionary and understand that needs of its population and is able to keep the trust and credibility with its people. It is unfortunate that the budget is a complete departure from what Malawians expected from the current administration.
“Malawians removed the previous administration because of its failure to understand the economic challenges and we don’t see the difference between the old and the new administration. We expected this new administration to have done things differently than this sham of a budget that is given,” reads the statement.
But Mlusu pledged that the Affordable Inputs Programme [AIP] will reach out to 4.2 million farm families, saying it is “not far from being a universal subsidy program.’’
On free water and electricity connections, Mlusu reiterated government’s commitment to ensure implementation of the initiative after reforms at the State utility companies.
The Treasury czar said the outlined programmes in the budget will ensure that one of the key components of the Tonse manifesto—the creation of one million jobs—materialises.
The minister said the job creation agenda will be buoyed by a number of several initiatives that have already been initiated.
Some of the initiatives Mlusu mentioned included establishment of modern and fully equipped job centres which will first be established in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu.
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Shame on you Mlusu are you serious 4.2 million beneficiaries is similar to universal fertilizer? School yake iti baba munapita? Remember this if ppo voted for tonse alliance is due to universal fertilizer which would go at K4,495. Now in a diplomatic approach you would have said by end of 3 years will make the programme universal that could be fair and understood. politicians fake ppo so we have seen there is no difference with dpp hence will see 2025 because i foresee tonse alliance disbanding by 2023 or 24 apa mpamene dpp idzakukwapuleni mwa mtima biii ngati simusamala. And izi zoti Chilima adzisolola ndalama helping its party while chakweranso naye siphoning money to fund its party ogooo! come 2025 there shall be nothing in govt coffers.
Criticism of the national budget is most welcome, and for sure not everyone even on the Tonse Alliance side will find it meeting their needs/expectations – fact of life given differences in preferences and limited resources, among other reasons. But then there is one John Kapito opening his mouth this time. As some have said, we saw this coming a mile or two away.
It has been widely said (well, voters said it in the June 2020 election) incompetence, poor planning, mismanagement, tribalism, nepotism, cronyism, theft of public resources and corruption of epic proportions during the DDP’s stints in government …all that bad stuff, wasted colossal amounts of Malawi’s hard-earned resources and diverted public resources away from critical public development and services expenditure including on education and health resulting in many lives being lost needlessly. In essence, you can say someone’s got blood on their hands.
WHY THE HELL DID JOHN KAPITO NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH TO CRITICISE THE DDP REGIME when all that bad stuff was happening? Or he thinks that’s what Malawians deserve best? WHERE WAS HE? Under some rock like a crab? This John Kapito man is badly conflicted, he does not fight for the interests of all Malawians, and surely the rest of Malawians can do without your selective interventions (yes, it’s your constitutional right to open your mouth, but it’s valueless when you are selective/biased).
Kapito, your time is up, crawl back under your rock where you hid during the bad times, and stay there…
Job Centres don’t create jobs as one contributor has pointed out. In fact there is already a website called “The Job Centre” in Malawi established in 2005.
And we have had the function of job centres at Labour Office for decades. But the most employers doubted the ability of these labour offices to security screen job seekers.
In my view creating 1 million jobs in first year of Tonse administration is not possible because only mechanism is investment.
Chakwera matako awonekera tsopano. Nonse alliance is a bunch of seasoned and pathological liars.
What is cama and who elected John Kapito to be the life president or permanent chief executive of cama?
This is a conman who take bribes from ruling parties to keep him quite……well this time you can make as much noise as you want but this Tonse government will not give you a single penny.
You are talking about passport fees, but how does that compare to the increase in the tax threshold from K45000 to K100000, which one is more potent to help the lives of Malawians?
We all know that Kapito is a cadet hence his silence during the DPP regime…
Rome was never built in day, the universal subsidy is coming….
The Canaan or tiri kwa Phsrao konkuja
Tonse alliance kuganiza ngati mbuzi
12 months – 3 months = 9 months. 3 months – 0 jobs created. 9 months – 1 million jobs created ……. .. .. [ do job centres create jobs?….i wonder!]
Although the promises made during campaign period cannot be fulfilled in the first year, how come before anything promised has been done they are continuing to add more promises ie the houses and offices for MPs?
We said it all along that the noises they dished out during campaigns were just gimmicks and will be very difficult to undertake. How do you run government programs on nothing? The economy is heading south and you expect to develop? Unfortunately, those who are rushing to back their parties seem not to be in the country. I am saying this because whatever hardships we are about to go through won’t be selective, everyone will feel the pinch regardless of party affiliations. When it comes to following don’t follow blindly because you belong to a particular area. If things are done unconstitutionally, say so. Muluzu once said, “Running a government is serious business” these are the results of seeing things from a distance and yet nothing is easy mainly when you an empty tinpot.
John Kapito expired long time ago, listen to him at your own risk
Mwayambiranso ntchito?
Mesa mulakho unakumangirani nyumba Basi munasiyira pomwepo kuyankhula,
Shame on you kapito,
Koma boma ili silingakupangire kalikonse, ukkhaula,
Come again in 2 years time,
Budget ya mwanamveka yopanda Nzeru ija bwanji sunanenepo kanthu?
We saw this coming. The most scary thing is that the most vocal media houses are all sale outs. No more Zodiak to criticize, no more times TV, no more Time News or Malawi News, MBC is obviously… no more Brian Bandas to take to inform the voting masses of this grievous failure of the Tonse Govt to deliver on its promises.
Malawians will ever be taken for a ride. And more woes are coming. Fasten your seat belts my fellow Malawians.
Abale boma langokhala 72 days ndiye muziti lalephera , abale polani moto mtunda ukadali kutali uwu mutopa kutsutsa chilichonse. Tonse Govnt is here to deliver to malawians of goodwill to develop our country and say no to corruption, nepotism, tribalism .
Job centres do not create jobs.
They simply help employers connect to employees and vice-versa.
That is far from the problem in Malawi.
As CAMA rightly points out, most people in Malawi are not formally employed.
That is not because of lack of job centres.
They are not thousands or even hundreds of companies desperately looking for labour.
The problem is the sleeping economy suppressed by government control.
Heavy government local borrowing, bloated and inefficient civil service.. these are the problems the ‘reformist’ government needs to fix.
Unfortunately we seem to be stuck in the same old way of thinking.
The Honourable Vice-President wants the Police Service to run its own driving school, and create a new government IT Department.
The only jobs these kind of ‘Job Centres’ will create is for largely inefficient civil servants.
Kapito is totally lost, he is complaining about tax on gambling wins as is he is spokesperson of gamblers, he is complaining about fertiliser as if he is farmers union chair, he is complaining about passport and water connection while the minister already said govt is in process of sorting those issues. kungofuna kutchuka basi. kuyankhula kongofuna kuziwitsa amalawi kuti mukadalipo
I said it before, this budget is Anti Business, its not economic stimulus package.
Malawians should prepare for tough times ahead.
Instead of reducing taxes they have increased taxes, still taxing Malawians on basic need items.
Import duty 20%
excise duty 25 %
vat % 16.5
All the above we pay on all imports in this country, how do we expect life to be fair on businesses and Malawians? Reduce taxes.
An item imported for R100 by the time its get to the shop it will costs R300. Common denominator is high taxes
Malawians are the most heavily taxed people on earth, relative to their incomes.
Taxes are high becoz very few people pay taxes, and those few people are paying taxes for everyone else, thats the problem.
Solution: broaden tax base, and reduce taxes.
I dont understand bwana Kapito. How on earth would you expect any new government to fulfill all campaign promises in first budget. Its literally ridiculous and naive. We have known you for championing the rights of the vulnerable but on this one you could have done better. Please next time wear positive eyes on issues of national development.
Kasim its either u r a fool or of a shallow mind.
Whats in this budget to grow or wake up this sleeping economy?
The budget is done by gvt officials who can make or break a govt. Mlusu is not wise enough to challenge em. Thats the painful truth. Chilima should have been the finance minister, he knows how it works.
After 100 days see the mass unrest due to economic hardship.