Malawi’s journey of managing debt with hope for economic growth

Development partners yesterday hailed President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera and his administration for the sound economic policies which they say have fixed the economy and the country.

This comes after President Dr Chakwera asked Malawians to tighten their belts as his administration turned around the economy battered by years of corruption, looting and plunder of public resources by the DPP-led government.

Speaking at Malawi Partners Conference, Strategic in the US which was attended by President Dr Chakwera, minister of Finance Honourable Simplex Chithyola Banda and the Malawi delegation to the UN General Assembly,  partners like UNDP and World Bank hailed Malawi for the sound economic policies including reforms.

The development partners also announced their support towards budget and others through IDA and others programmes like PforR.

This was where President of African Development Bank (ADB) announced grants to Malawi Government for budgetary support and others including Emergency Response totalling K95 billion.

Finance minister Honourable Chithyola Banda said it was soothing to hear development partners hail President Dr Chakwera and his government for the strides the government has made in fixing the economy.

“We are nose cruising to campaign and campaign fevers are boiling high.

All lies gonna be peddled against government so that it is seen to be failing. Let them cross check with us for facts before they fabricate stories.

“We are managing debts which were wrongly obtained by DPP government of which some of their developments cannot be seen on the ground, we qualified for IMF’s extended credit facility (ECF) and in our government we don’t cook figures, we report as it is,” he said.

Honourable Chithyola Banda said for the first time in 15 years, the country has secured the budgetary support, saying this shows that donor confidence is back and tangible developments are seen

“Have you ever asked yourself questions as to what would happen if we could not have these debts as obtained by DPP?

“The projects you are seeing in Lilongwe would have been doubled! Whilst Chakwera government is servicing debts he is also delivering,” he said.

He said people should not compare the net value of the debt in Kwacha of 2019 to a net value of Kwacha of 2024

Honourable Chithyola Banda said the dollar under which the government borrowed the money remained the same but Kwacha values changed making the debts look bigger in Kwacha value compared to dollar value, saying nobody should take advantage of people’s limited understanding on national economy and cheat them as if this government is bad.

He said this is the best government ever as it is led by someone who has the heart to lift people from poverty to prosperity.