Government has given in to Judiciary support staffs’ demands for salary hike and has since given an assurance the 65 percent increment will be effective by July this year after national budget approval by Parliament. Last month the support staffs gave government a 14-days ultimatum to hike their salaries or face industrial sit-in following its […]
Malawi President Joyce Banda has approved the convening of Parliament on May 17 2013 to, among other things, table her administration’s second and the last national budget before elections next year. Speaker of Parliament Henry Chimunthu Banda confirmed that the President will officially open the budget meeting. Parliament convenes after the consultation between the Head […]
Newly appointed deputy minister of finance Dr Cornelius Mwalwanda has played down calls to reduce taxes on the importation of second hand vehicles saying the practice drains government’s scare forex reserves. Malawi has dismal foreign reserves because of perpetually huge trade deficit as it has few products and services the world wants. “Of course vehicles […]
Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM) in a presentation at a 2013/14 pre-budget consultation meeting in Mzuzu on Wednesday, asked the government to re-introduce school fees in primary schools as one way of meeting the cost of improving the quality of primary education. Malawi introduced free primary education in 1994 at the dawn of multiparty, a […]
Participants to the second 2013/14 pre-budget meeting held in Mzuzu but meant for northern region participants were disappointed with absence of Finance Minister Ken Lipenga whom they wanted to clarify a number of things and also get their inputs into country’s financial blue print. Ministry officials failed to give reasons for Lipenga’s absence. Instead newly […]
Minister of Finance Ken Lipenga on Monday started pre-budget consultations with various stakeholders in Blantyre ahead of the 2013/2014 budget session and met with the Society of Accountants in Malawi (Socam) which urged the government to raise the tax free band from the current K15,000 to K25,000. Socam observed with the devaluation of the Kwacha […]
Malawi has slightly improved citizen access to budget information over the past two years, according to a major biennial report, 2012 Open Budget Survey (OBS) by International Budget Partnership. The OBS found that Malawi increased its budget transparency score from 47 points out of 100 in 2010 to 52 points out of 100 in 2012 […]
Members of Parliament Tuesday afternoon bluntly demanded an increase to their Community Development Fund (CDF) allocation, saying it is in direct response to the decrease in the buying power of the Kwacha. Their demands were made clear when the members teamed up to force the Finance Minister Dr. Ken Lipenga to defer vote number 121 […]
Finance Minister Dr Ken Lipenga will present to Parliament the revised midterm before the current session ends next week, Leader of the House Henry Phoya told the House on Friday. Phoya, who is also Minister of Lands and Housing, said changes had to be made to the original mid-term budget presented by Lipenga two weeks […]
Opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have warned the Joyce Banda administration against spending extra money illegally after Minister of Finance Ken Lipenga on Thursday withdrew the Mid-Term Budget Supplementary Bill. Lipenga, whose credibility as the country’s purse keeper is questionable, told a news conference Thursday evening that the Mid-Term Budget […]
Opposition parliamentarians in Malawi on Monday had time to flex their numerical muscles again at President Joyce Banda’s government when they refused to curtail the debate on the midterm budget statement when government moved the motion. The opposition are now in majority after they were joined by the UDF at the start of this meeting. […]
Opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ganged up on Friday in questioning the credibility of Finance Minister Dr Ken Lipenga in his 2012/13 mid-year budget statement. Lipenga was the country’s purse keeper who oversaw the exaggeration of revenue figures under the Bingu wa Mutharika administration during the infamous zero-deficit budget. He […]
Finance Minister Dr. Ken Lipenga on Friday announced a revised 2012/2013 Fiscal Year Budget which has been revised from K461.4bn from K394.9bn. Lipenga said Domestic Revenues had been revised upwards to K278.9 billion from K 270.4 billion approved in the Budget and that the revised targets comprise K243.8 billion tax revenues and K35.1 billion non […]
Motion Mr. Speaker, Sir, and Honourable Members, I beg to move that this House debate the Supplementary Estimates of Recurrent and Development Accounts for the 2012/13 Fiscal Year and that the estimates be referred to the Committee of the Whole House, to consider them Vote by Vote, and that thereafter, they be adopted. INTRODUCTION Mr. […]
Commentators and activists took to social media and internet discussion forum on Saturday to lash out at Malawi government’s austerity talk over a published report that State House has blown its 2012/13 annual budget less than five months into the financial year even as priority sectors such as health struggle for funding. The Weekend Nation […]
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has announced emergency budget support for the Government of Malawi. The UK is providing MK10.6 billion (£20m) to the end of this financial year, 2012-2013. Making the announcement, Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, said:“President Banda’s government has taken some tough but necessary decisions to stabilise the […]
The European Union and Malawi Government on Wednesday signed a financing agreement worth MK39.7bn (98m Euros) for General Budget Support for the next 3 fiscal years. The EU budget support which is now called Good Governance and Development Contract (GGDC) is expected to contribute to the consolidation of macroeconomic stability, reforms in the area of […]
A renowned health activist Martha Kwataine who is also Executive Director for the Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has asked the Malawi government to consider increasing the budget allocation for the health sector in a bid to reduce the challenges it is currently experiencing. Kwataine made the remarks on Tuesday during her presentation at a […]