The Parliamentary Cluster on Commissions, Statutory Corporations and Public Appointments has promised to lobby for increased resources to the National Planning Commission (NPC) to enable it fulfil its critical role of driving Malawi’s development.
Speaking after hearing from NPC management on the commission’s funding needs, the cluster’s chairperson, Honourable Silvester Ayuba James, says the parliamentarians appreciate the importance of making sure NPC is adequately funded. “We’ll take up your case for increased funding,” he said.
In its presentation, NPC said limited financing from the government is making it difficult for the commission to develop value chains and other non-traditional pathways that the country desperately needs to recover and transform economically.
The commission appealed to Parliament to help it lobby for an additional K1.9 billion on top of the provisionally allocated K2.1 billion for the next financial year to enable it to fulfil critical and essential functions such as the development of bankable projects for selected commodities.
NPC Director General Fredrick Changaya said Malawi needs to come up with innovative ways of developing its economy, given that repeating what we have tried in over 60 years of independence has always led us to the same spot of acute poverty.
He said, however, that without adequate funding, NPC lacks institutional capacity to provide the country with evidence-based advice on national development.
“Critical programs aren’t adequately funded, and these include development of the value chains, monitoring of the flagship programmes and implementation of the mindset changes programmes,” said Changaya. He said that although development partners have in the past years been supplementing government funding, the situation is different now as donor funding is also increasingly narrowing.
These, coupled with high prices of goods and services, have affected the operational budget of NPC, resulting in limited institutional capacity, citing a lack of adequate ICT equipment and vehicles to support the implementation oversight drive.
“Honourable Members, the budget gap before you is not merely a financial shortfall. It is a choice between dependency and dignity. It is a choice between studies that serve foreign interests and studies that serve Malawi’s future. “It is a choice between being bystanders in the creation of global prosperity and that of being planners of our own destiny-creating our own prosperity,” he said.
It was observed during the meeting that while the NPC needs K6.7bn to meet its basic operational needs for the 2026-2027 financial year, the treasury has given it a ceiling of K2.1 billion, leaving a gap of K4.6 billion.
In the ending financial year, the NPC submitted to the treasury a budget of K4.9 billion but was only provided with K2.1 billion.
Photo Credit: Zodiak Online
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