Government Calls For Financial Prudence

Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development has called for financial prudence in all government sectors.

The call has been made during the  2019/2020 pre-budget consultation meeting in Blantyre on Friday.

The meetings are aimed at getting inputs from different stakeholders on how best government can improve the national budget.

The pre-budget consultation meetings are conducted every year as one way of soliciting views from the general public on what to be included in the national cake-the Budget.

This year the pre-budget consultation meetings were also conducted in three major cities of Mzuzu, Lilongwe and Blantyre.

The 2019/2020 pre-budget meeting just like the previous ones attracted a lot of inputs from various circles of the society but participants expressed concern as most of their inputs are said to have not been included in the final budget.

At the third meeting at Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre on Friday, participants discussed  issues of ending corruption, improving electricity generation capacity and tourism sector as well infrastructure as some of the ways to boost the country’s economy.

Speaking to Radio Islam after the meeting, Minister of finance Josephy Mwanamveka acknowledged the need to deal with corruption especially in government procurement sectors.

“A lot of money is lost in government through poor financial prudence especially in councils,” Mwanamveka said

He further assured Malawians that the 2019/2020 budget will include most of the inputs gathered in all the consultation meetings.

Chairperson for Institute of Chartered Accountants in Malawi (ICAM) Frank Gondwe faulted government for not doing enough in curbing corruption in Malawi.

“Among ICAM’s proposals to the 2019/2020 budget is removal of Value Added Tax VAT on basic commodities like bread and increase funding to the tourism and energy sectors,” said Gondwe

He further called upon government to ensure MRA registers all tax payers in Malawi and improve the tax collection system.

The 2019/2020 pre budget meeting attracted accountants, auditors, academia, religious leaders and the media.