Treasury blames November pay delay on MDAs
Treasury has blamed the delayed payment of November salaries to civil servants on some government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) late submission of relevant paperwork.
Treasury also said computation of the zero-rated income tax of K100 000 implemented by the new Tonse Alliance administration was another contributing factor.
Ministry of Finance spokesperson Williams Banda said in an interview yesterday that MDAs affected by the delay were those that had delayed to submit the necessary paperwork to allow the Accountant General’s office effect payment.
“By the fifth of the month MDAs are expected to submit what we call GP5A forms; which provides details of the payroll before a request is sent to the Accountant General. Like for this month, we expect them to submit by Friday [today] for December salaries,” he said.
Banda said by November 25 only 16 votes out of 70 had submitted their GP5A forms.
He said: “But if you ask them [affected MDAs], they will say it is Ifmis [Integrated Financial Management Information System]. But this delay has nothing to do with Ifmis.”
In random interviews, some of the affected MDAs blamed the delay on network glitches in Ifmis, the government’s electronic payment platform.
The Malawi Government’s official payday is the 27th of every month, but over 70 percent of MDAs got their salaries past the payday.
The Department of Human Resource Management and Development also blamed MDAs for failure to submit the required forms on time.
According to the department’s spokesperson Kennie Mtonga, as of Wednesday most MDAs, with the exception of Mulanje and Chikwawa district councils, had already received their salaries.
In separate interviews both district commissioners (DCs) for Chikwawa and Mulanje admitted delaying to submit the paperwork.
Chikwawa DC Stallichi Mwambiwa said they were facing problems to upload information into the Ifmis system; hence, the delay.
