The Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) Executive Director John Kapito has described the 2020/21 National Budget as Empty and too ambitious.
The out-spoken consumers Rights Activist, Kapito made the remarks in a statement made available to the Publication titled ‘Ambitious Empty Budget for Consumers’.
Among others, Kapito said the budget has neglected the promises made by the new Administration during campaign period such as the Universal Fertilizer Subsidy creation of a million jobs and removal of taxes on some basic goods and services.
Activist Kapito further said that the current budget has been set to benefit only selected individuals.
Minister of Finance Felix Mlusu on Friday presented to Parliament a 2020/2021 budget pegged at MK 2.2 trillion representing a 30.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Mlusu highlighted that the implementation of the 2020/2021 budget will be challenging as government has not been spared by the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic with monthly tax revenue collections dropping by 11 percent compared to the pre-Covid-19 period.
The education sector has been allocated the largest portion of the budget at K384.5 billion which is 21.6 percent of the total budget.
The agriculture sector ranks second with an allocation of K354.8 billion representing a 19.9 percent of the total budget.
K400 million has been allocated to Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare for the implementation of the action plan for the protection of people with albinism and a further K100 million has been allocated to the disability fund.
Mlusu said that the government will endeavor to create a condusive environment to jump start the economy and spur growth, generate adequate revenue to finance the budget and deliver quality public services to the nation.
Parliament will go into Cluster Committees to scrutinize the 2020/2021 budget from Monday, 14th September 2020 to Friday, 25th September, 2020.-( Additional report Malawi Parliament)
Surprisingly, the much learned Economists who were previously in the forefront shooting down any budget are this time around mum. Should we assume that this is the case because they authored the budget? As far as the country’s economy is concerned, to accomplish a number of projects will be an uphill task, as learnt from the horse’s mouth (Finance Minister). Is this not the right time to come up and contribute your economics know-how other than burying your heads in sand? In developed countries those who are educated are the ones in the forefront assisting governments based on their field of expertise. In Malawi such species will mostly be found in political realms and they are usually called ‘Political Analysts’. What a sad story and precedence we have set in a poverty stricken Malawi, whereby people will always make noise just to be noticed and in the process they get silenced by being given what can be termed as ‘Monetary Silencers’. Ukabvu ni uheni nadi!!!