Malawi to continue with ‘zero-aid budget’ –Finance Minister

Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe has said Malawi will continue with the hurting zero-aid budgetconcert whilst waiting for aid resumption.

Malawi has been operating without budget support since October 2013 when donors started withholding 40% of budgetary support following allegations of corruption and systematic looting of state resources by senior civil servants and politicians.

African Development Bank (AfDB) will inject about K8 billion in budget support with the World Bank also hinting at supporting the next budget.

Finance Minister is not pretending that government can do without donor support.

He has however said the zero-aid budget will continue until donors resume aid.

“I am more concerned with what we can do ourselves than what we can get for free. But it has become very clear that disasters like the floods will affect what we can generate in this coming financial year,” Gondwe is quoted by a local daily.

Gondwe is expected to present his budget statement on Friday, May 22 and he has estimated that it will be a “hard to sell” budget worth K900 billion. The 2014/15 budget that expires on June 30 is worth K770 billion.

Representatives of the United Nations (UN) and the government of the United States of America (USA) have since said that it was encouraging for President Peter Mutharika to outline the reform programmes during his State of the Nation Address in a bid to regain trust of development partners and Malawians at large.

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