Malawi ready for IMF quarterly reviews

Malawi Government has said it is ready to meet the International Monitory Fund (IMF) next month for quarterly budget monitoring.

In the past, the IMF used to monitor the budget twice, but this time the institution will be monitoring it quarterly based on agreed targets of revenue performance.

In the first quarter, the IMF was monitoring performance for the months of July, August and September. The first quarter’s target is K55 billion, second quarter K53 billion, third K56 billion and fourth K54 billion to be met through tax and non-tax revenue.

Ministry of Finance deputy director for revenue policy Gracium Kandio said at the weekend the first quarter has beat targets in terms of revenue collection.

He said the current revenue figures are real and would send a good signal to IMF and donors.

“In June, MRA over performed. Not the over performance that you know when we were colouring up figures…The target was K20.3 billion, they managed to collect K20.8 billion in which case they went up by roughly half a billion.

“In July, which is the first month of this 2012/2013 fiscal year, we had a target of 20.4 billion, but MRA managed to collect K21.4 billion. And surprisingly, it is the customs that are performing which is an indication that with the increased availability of foreign exchange people are now able to transact business so much so that the customs are able to collect,” said Kandio.

Kandio said apart from forex availability, steady fuel supply was the other reason behind the good performance as customs and excise duty were being collected.

“On fuel there is customs, there is excise duty, all that is being collected and then at the end of the day in terms of international trade taxes we are doing very well. So that gives you a good indication that if in June we over-performed in terms of tax revenue and July we have also over performed, all indications are there that for the month of August we are also going to meet the target,” said Kandio.