Opposition urges JB to implement promises

Malawi President Joyce Banda on Friday announced her government’s road map in the coming fiscal year, warning Malawians to brace for further pains as the country continues on the recovery path.

However, opposition political parties and the European Union (EU), while applauding the President for tackling on a number of promises, urged her to walk the talk if she is to see through her vision as outlined in her address.

Leader of Opposition and MCP president John Tembo said although the President spoke well most of the things were a repeat of her previous addresses.

“The major concern is implementation of those new things. Good things can be said but implementation is important,” he said.

Tembo said it was important that the President touched on the welfare of ordinary Malawians, but said he was worried that the issue of food sufficiency and the Farm Input Subsidy Programme had not been adequately addressed.

“I would have loved to see a full report on the subsidy programme because to me with the coupons there is nothing much we can achieve to ensure food sufficiency. There should be a universal subsidy,” he said.

Tembo also agreed with the President that Malawians should expect more pain as the country continues on its economic recovery path. He, however, expressed concern over expected funding cuts to ministries, saying this would affect service delivery to the people.

“The speech was political in some respect, especially on the issues of traditional chiefs and the salaries for the civil service. However, when reforming the economy you do not expect it to be fair, it is always painful and it would indeed be painful,” said Tembo.

However, he applauded the President for trying her best during the last 12 months although he said government could have done better on spending practices such as “splashing money unnecessarily even during political rallies.”

Walk the talk

UDF president Atupele Muluzi said he would like to see President Banda’s outlined vision put into practice.

“The ideas are good and the rhetoric is there but we would want to see results. We will be in a very difficult situation as we go to elections,” he said.

He also said although the address lacked drivers to the economy, it was encouraging that the President made attempts to focus on people’s welfare through initiatives such as the announced Mudzi Transformational Trust.

“What we want is ownership of the initiative. It should be owned by Malawians and that it is not partisan. There should indeed be focus on an individual and putting money into people’s pockets, but these programmes should not only be aimed at winning the elections but should be long-term,” added Muluzi.

Abandon petty projects

DPP leader in Parliament George Chaponda said although the President mentioned a number of issues, her address failed to tackle issues that would deal with eradicating poverty.

He said it would have been better if the President had focused on macro-projects such as the Nsanje World In-land Port instead of concentrating on cow distribution and other petty projects whose benefits are difficult to be translated at national level.

EU Ambassador Alexander Baum also said the challenge with the President’s address was implementation of the outlined programmes as the country is going into an election year.

“It is very important that government stays the course and maintain fiscal discipline and avoid wastages,” said Baum.

In her almost two-hour address themed “Malawi on the Road to Transformation” President Banda said although there were signs that the economy was recovering there was still need for Malawians to be vigilant and resilient as the country continues on the national austerity drive.

She also cautioned that some ministries would face funding cuts as part of the reforms.

“Indeed we must remember that the road to full recovery is long, I therefore wish to appeal to all Malawians to remain steadfast and resilient until we reach the full recovery we envisage,” said Banda.

She added: “We are called upon to set new goals to guide us along the road to recovery and transformation, to sketch a landscape in which we can act on our collective dream and to draft a plan to deliver us from the consequences of our past mistakes.”

Mudzi Transformational Trust

Apart from announcing a number of reforms in the economy, agriculture, public sector, social support, tourism and health, President Banda announced the setting up of the Mudzi Transformational Trust whose objective would be to mobilise accessible, responsive and flexible resources to support social and economic projects for Malawians.

“Government is concerned by the slow pace of eradicating poverty and therefore government is determined to rejuvenate rural economies, improve the social economic conditions of rural communities and bring real incomes into households,” she said.

Banda said the trust, which would be a private sector led initiative, would target individual villages across the country with comprehensive high impact interventions that will accelerate the betterment of well-being of rural and urban poor.

She said the trust would among several areas provide clean and potable water; build assets of households; support farmers clubs access farm inputs on loans and grow cash crops; facilitate access to markets; provide support for roads, health and education infrastructure development and special housing schemes for serving low grade civil servants.

The President also announced that government is working on the formalisation of 20 000 village heads across the country after observing that out of the 62 000 group village heads and village heads across the country only 22 000 were officially registered.

She said out of the newly-registered chiefs, 15 000 would be village heads while 5 000 would be group village heads. Banda also announced an increase of the chief’s honoraria which he said would be part of the overall salary increases in the public service in the coming fiscal year.

Other reforms in the public sector include development of the Public Service Management Policy framework and revising the Public Service Act; promotion of Public Service Delivery accountability through Service Charters; and introduction of an Organisational Performance Assessment System in the public service to monitor and evaluate performance in ministries, departments and agencies.

Remuneration Board Bill

Banda announced that government would be tabling the Remuneration Board Bill to address issues of salary reviews and promotion of staff in the civil service.

She also announced the restructuring of the agricultural sector for it to better serve economic growth, employment and poverty reduction while at the same time orienting farmers to manage farming as business.

She also said government is working on export diversification and farm produce expansion through introduction of crops such as rice, cotton, coffee, cassava, and legumes such as groundnuts, soya, sugar beans, pigeon peas, and sunflower while at the same time promoting increased production of flue cured tobacco.

She also announced a special loan scheme to be known as the Farm Input Loan Programme (Filp) which would go hand in hand with the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp).

The President also announced a restructuring of Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc). She said the corporation has not performed to the expectation of many Malawians with its current debt standing at about MK6 billion (about $15m).

Among other areas, the speech also touched on the energy sector, tourism, mining, infrastructure development, air transport, private sector development, industry, trade, information and communication technology, youth development and empowerment, employment and labour, and water development and irrigation.