Goodall to present 2015/16 budget today

Malawi Finance, Economic Planning and Development Minister Goodall Gondwe is today expected to present a new fiscal plan covering the financial year 2015/16 at Parliament in Lilongwe.
The budget, whose expenditure and net lending will likely exceed K900 billion, will be presented amid continued growing uncertainty over budget aid from major development partners who are anxious to see a fraud-free public financial management system of government.

The development partners—who have in the past contributed an average of 40 percent of total budget—froze aid in November 2013 after revelations of massive abuse of taxpayers’ money at Capital Hill, popularly called Cashgate.
Today, only African Development Bank (AfDB) has hinted that it might resume budget support to Malawi in the 2015/16 budget on condition that government clears mess in its public financial management system, among others.
The bank earmarked K8 billion towards the 2014/15 budget, but says it awaits approval from its Executive Board in Tunis,Tunisia.
Yesterday, economist Thomas Chataghalala Munthali, while hoping for the best in the new budget, said it is high time government found a way out from the traditional overreliance from tobacco.
“I hope the budget will support export-led growth and reinforce the National Export Strategy [NES],” said Munthali in an interview.
Earlier in March, Gondwe warned that the 2015/16 budget will be a financial plan that will be “difficult to sell to members of Parliament and all Malawians.”
Said the minister during pre-budget consultations: “We will have to undergo stringent reductions or shrinking of the budget in real terms…it will be intellectual budgets that will be difficult to sell to everybody including our members of Parliament.”