Malawi govt MPs celebrate K500mil cut on education budget

Legislators sitting on government side on Tuesday afternoon broke into jubilation after beating the opposition on a vote to decrease a budgetary allocation to the struggling education ministry.

Ministre of Finance Goodall Gondwe had proposed to cut the budget by K500 million from K113.8 billion to K113.7 billion.

Gondwe said the ministry does not need this money allocated from now up to June 2017.

He said this is why the government decided to reallocate the money to other ministries and government departments.

Gondwe said this in parliament where legislators are vetting mid-year national budget which has seen a surprise cut from K930 billion to K906 billion.

However, opposition MPs questioned the rationale of cutting the education ministry vote when public education system is fast collapsing.

They said public schools critically need teaching and learning materials and teachers there it a joke that the government proposed such a cut.

However, Education minister Emmanuel Fabiano assured the House all will be well after the reduction to the vote but the opposition legislators stood their ground until First Deputy Speaker Esther Mcheka Chilenje put a vote on whether the Education budget should be reduced or not to which the government won.

The win surprised the government which has few MPs than the opposition force of Malawi Congress Party and People’s Party.

The government legislators celebrated just a day after two budgets for State Residences and Office of President were deferred as opposition MPs rejected their increase.