Cash strapped Malawi govt restricts ministerial travel 

The Malawian government has restricted domestic travel by cabinet ministers to eight trips per month as a cost-cutting measure to support the zero-aid  budget, Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said Wednesday.

According to Gondwe, the restrictions have been done in the austerity measures  with no budgetary support from donors including Britain, who suspended aid following massive corruption scandal known as the ‘cashgate’.

“The restrictions have been there for some time but this time around will have further reduced the ministers’ internal travels to eight in a month,” Gondwe said.

He said this was an addition to the foreign trips restriction that the government imposed last year, which limited ministers to travel outside the country only three times in a year.

Gondwe said the government intended to take the measures to parliament to lobby lawmakers to also reduce their foreign and domestic travels that are bankrolled by the Treasury.

In October 2014, the government restricted public officers and ministers external travel to only three times in a financial year as a way of saving scarce foreign currency.