Malawi govt asks UNDP to increase allowances for  National ID registration workers

Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Grace Chiumia has said the government has asked for extra funding from UNDP to increase the daily allowance for those working for the national identity registration.

Chiumia told parliament on Thursday that the government would like to increase the daily allowance from the current K10, 000 per day to K20, 000 per day.

“K20, 000 is the minimum allowance for the juniors in government,” she said.

Her remarks come at a time when the National Registration Bureau temporary workers have given the bureau up to one week to increase the allowances saying the K120, 000 per month for juniors and K150, 000 for supervisors was not enough due to the escalating cost of life.

Chiumia conceded in parliament that K10, 000 daily allowance was not enough to cater for food, accommodation and other essentials in view of the escalating cost of life.

However she said the UNDP, which is funding the national identity project, along with other donors, are yet to respond to the request but she was upbeat they would respond positively.

The registration exercise is facing a lot of challenges, including mass resignation of staff due to the low allowances.

Chiumia however said although the project is facing a lot of challenges, it is going on smoothly as already 1.1 million people have already been registered in phase one of the registration exercise out of the targeted four million.