Chakwera unveils recovery plan amid Covid-19

President Lazarus Chakwera has unveiled a two-year Covid-19 Socio-economic Recovery Plan that seeks to revive the country’s battered economy through various interventions.

In his Year-End Address delivered last night and made available to The Nation by the State House Press Office, the President said the planned interventions will cost the country at least K500 billiion and will cover the period between 2021 and 2023.

He said: “The success of this Socio-economic Recovery Plan will depend on all of us. It will depend on State actors across my government aligning their activities, programmes, policies, budgets and spending with in this plan. If they do not, the economy will not recover.

“Secondly, it will depend on non-State actors, corporations, development partners, foreign investors and private sector players responding to the interventions of this plan in ways that complement it.”

Chakwera said the plan will ensure that the country stays on course with the implementation of the Malawi 2063 (MW2063) first 10-year rollout plan. He said success will also depend on cooperating partner nations both within the region and globally ensuring a global supply chain as well as citizens themselves complying to Covid-19 regulations, among others.

The President said he is confident that everyone will do their part since the goal is to have the economy back on track after being slowed down by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chakwera’s statement comes two days after his predecessor Peter Mutharika challenged him to provide leadership, especially in terms of economic management.

In his address, the President acknowledged that the country’s economy is bleeding from four wounds, namely structural limitations, gross imbalance between imports and exports, Covid-19 and government waste.

He said the recovery plan will expand, increase and diversify agricultural production for exports and formalise informal sector activities, stimulate sectors such as mining, infrastructure development and manufacturing. He also said the policy rate will be maintained at 12 percent while intensifying vaccination efforts and scaling up social cash transfers, creation of jobs for the youth and digitalising service delivery to stop leakage of resources.

The President said: “The recovery plan is designed to give some the resilience to hang-in there during these hard times, give some the capacity to step up production and give others support to step-out into new sectors through diversification and value addition.

“With the economic interventions we have effected so far this year, economic growth recovery for the year 2022 is already projected at over five percent of GDP [growth domestic product].”

He said with active participation of everybody, the measures outlined in the recovery plan will put the economy on the right path to rebound.

Chakwera said Vice-President Saulos Chilima, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development; and Public Sector Reforms, will engage the private sector and development partners on ways they can support the socio-economic recovery plan.

He also said Minister of Finance Felix Mlusu will engage various stakeholders in consultations aimed at ensuring the recovery plan is reflected in the upcoming national budget alongside other programmes such as free water connection.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Information will be tasked with implementing a communication strategy to inform Malawians on progress being made, he said.

The plan comes at a time when numerous stakeholders, including civil society organisations and opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have faulted the Chakwera administration for failing to provide clear strategies on how Malawians will be cushioned amid a deteriorating socio-economic status.

Two weeks ago, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace national coordinator Boniface Chibwana expressed concern with the prevailing socio-economic situation in the country, saying it has left many people hopeless and distressed.

He said the government should take concerns Malawians have been raising seriously, that include the rising cost of living, shortage of drugs in public hospitals and poor service delivery.