Govt to blame for not

Govt to blame for not
implementing budget—opposition
By Emmanuel Luciano

The opposition says government failure to implement the 2006/07 budget because of poor planning and instability in the civil service.

The opposition’s comments come in the wake of Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) revelations that government had not fully implemented the budget’s Development Account, because of what it attributed to as low absorption capacity in the government civil service, a thing that led to ministries and government departments to under-spend.

But UDF’s Economic Advisor Friday Jumbe said some government departments lacked budget implementation capacity because there was no staff to do the work.

“It’s is justifiable to say that certain departments lack implementation capacity. For instance government was supposed to build four secondary schools in areas like Dedza and Blantyre, but how can they implement projects when they keep on moving staff from one ministry to another?” Jumbe asked.

The UDF Economic Advisor also said he was not satisfied with the way the entire 2006/07 budget was implemented.

“I am not satisfied with the way we have handled this budget. We have not made available drugs in our hospitals when money was allocated. I am not talking about Nac drugs which are funded by the donors here.

“We have also not been able to provide teaching and learning materials and they only tendered for those materials last month. The University of Malawi was given money to repair its decaying infrastructure but up to now nothing has been done. True, there are administrative hiccups, donors are bureaucratic but that is no excuse” he said.

He, however, said the government should not sit on the laurels of bringing fiscal discipline but should do more for its citizens.

“They say they have brought fiscal discipline, inflation rate has gone down, debt has been cancelled but the biggest challenge this government faces is transforming that economic growth to economic well-being of its citizenry,” he said.

Peoples Progressive Movement’s vice president Mark Katsonga said civil servants’ low absorption capacity was no excuse for government’s failure to implement the budget.

“The budget is prepared by government not parliament and it should be able to implement it. Civil servants have been there ever since. But how many times have they transferred principal secretaries? How many times have they unjustifiably fired civil servants? It is the politicians in government’s fault because the few remaining performers are being transferred before they are settled and know their jobs.

“What I know is that the period for one to settle is three months for junior officers and six months for directors and Principal Secretaries yet most of the PSs have stayed there for less than three months. We need stability in the civil service. We need proper planning,” Katsonga said.

MCP vice president Nicholas Dausi said government should not put in the budget things that cannot be implemented.

“It is government that does the allocation, the tabulation and the planning of the budget. If they say they will drill 400 boreholes, build so many schools if they can’t do that then why put that in the budget,” said Dausi.

But Democratic Progressive Party spokesperson Hetherwick Ntaba said it was wrong for the opposition to think that projects could be done within one financial year.

“The issue of developmental projects is an on going thing. To say that all projects can be implemented within one financial year is madness. This should be coming from those who have never been in government like Aford or PPM but if it is coming from UDF then it is unfortunate,” Ntaba said.

Ntaba said government has the capacity to implement the budget as evidenced in the fact that there I always an element of over-expenditure.