Malawi govt laments low utilisation of financial resources by its ministries
Government has admitted that inadequate or outright lack of technical and professional capacity in Malawi government’s ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are denying citizens the much-desired socioeconomic transformation.
The acting Chief Director for Economic Planning and Development, Peter Simbani, has since challenged the MDAs to make full use of the provided resources so that Malawi can attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the designated timeframe.
Simbani made the remarks on Thursday at the SDGs annual review report dissemination workshop in Lilongwe.
The workshop, which was supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), drew representation from MDAs, district councils, civil society organisations, (CSOs), development partners, and UN agencies such as the UN Women.
Simbani stressed that Malawi cannot afford the luxury of giving back resources to the development partners because MDAs are unable to utilise them to the maximum.
“This is not the time to give back resources to development partners due to underutilization. The nature of some activities we are implementing and the government fiscal position does not allow this.
“The achievement of some national and universal goals cannot be postponed to a future time or date, without risking lives of the people. So let us take every opportunity and resources to implement our activities,” he said.
Simbani asked the civil servants and public officers to turn the challenges they are facing in the implementation of their programmes opportunities for improvement.
He further appealed to the public officers and the civil servants to renew their resolve in pursuing the development aspirations of the country as reflected in Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III) and Malawi Vision 2020.
“Government realises that a strong institutional capacity is key to the successful implementation of the MGDS III and other global agenda. In this regard, he said sovernment established the National Planning Commission to spearhead implementation of Malawi’s development agenda.
“The Director General for the National Planning Commission was recruited last year and the recruitment process for the remaining officers has been initiated and very soon the NPC will be operating at full capacity. We are therefore working together with the NPC and complementing each other and we are not in any way in competition,” he said.
UN Women Country Representative Clara Anyangwe hailed the workshop, saying it was crucial in charting the way forward in attaining Malawi’s socioeconomic development aspirations.
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This is the results of putting incompetent people who care less about the people they serve into critical positions. The South African government has a repercussion for this malpractice. The departments that have under spend their allocated funds loose these funds to those that have optimally utilized theirs.