Ministry of Economic Planning and Development has called for sound public capital spending to ensure value for money in development projects.
The ministry’s director of development Emma Mavumbe said this in an interview in Lilongwe last week.
She was speaking in the context of a five-day public capital spending training conducted by the National Planning Commission (NPC) with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mavumbe admitted that taxpayers have not enjoyed maximised value for development as most of them are delayed, causing cost overruns, which is unexpected incurred costs.
She said: “We are aware that government resources come from taxes, so it means all of us contribute to government capital for development.
“So, if government is not adding value to the resources, it means taxpayers’ money is going down the drain, which is what we don’t want as government. We need every tambala to be accounted for to bring value in taxpayers’ money.”
On his part, NPC director of knowledge and learning Joseph Nagoli said to achieve the goals of the medium to long-term vision, government needs to tame wastage.
“In the new Vision 2063, there will be flagship projects, so the training will help officials from the ministry and those from NPC to do prioritised screening and evaluation of the projects to ensure that the selected projects have value for money.”
The IMF in collaboration with the ministry and NPC developed tools to guide the training.
The participants were trained to be be trainers of trainers in all concerned ministries, departments and agencies.
The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) III mid-term review report uncovered project financing and implementation gaps that saw planned projects stalling or implementation at snail’s pace, leading to the overall score of 31 percent.
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