Nearly 85 percent of government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are struggling to make gains in their respective reforms areas due to financial constraints, a progress report has shown.
Department of Public Sector Reforms Management, in a media brief on its report dated June 2 2025, said most MDAs have developed plans that cannot be implemented due to limited resources.
The department has now recommended to Treasury to finance the MDAs to implement the reforms to reduce donor dependency.
Reads the update in part: “If reforms are to make significant impact on public service delivery, Treasury must financially support ministries to implement critical reforms and reduce the ministries’ dependence on donor resources.”
In an interview on Tuesday, Department of Public Sector Reforms Management spokesperson Suzgo Khunga said they have proposed the establishment of public sector reform fund to facilitate implementation.
She said the fund will support reform areas that are very crucial and have significant impact in terms of improving service delivery.
Said Khunga: “This is something we are going to continue to appeal to Treasury to assist us.
“We don’t have a figure yet but we would want that fund to be substantial so that once that reform area is implemented people can actually see that changes have been made and the changes will contribute towards the betterment of their life.”
In the report, Ministry of Agriculture highlighted as successes the development of multiple policies such as Irrigation Bill, National Agriculture Policy, National Irrigation Policy, Agriculture Land Resources Management Policy and National Livestock Development Strategic Plan to enhance growth of the sector.
The ministry also mentioned establishment of six mechanisation centres and two greenhouses providing 3 000 farmers with access to mechanisation services at the Lilongwe Agriculture Development Division (ADD), Machinga ADD, Blantyre ADD, Salima ADD, Mzuzu ADD and Karonga ADD.
However, it also mentioned slow policy and technology adoption as well limited ICT infrastructure and stakeholder responsiveness as challenges which are also somehow linked to resources.
The update has also revealed the continued delays to devolve functions from the central government to local government authorities as another area affecting reforms.
Here, Ministry of Tourism said it has developed a plan and guidelines for councils to take charge of tourism programmes under their jurisdiction but limited funding has affected implementation of this plan.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Lands also cited limited equipment and software to roll out a newly-launched Land Information Management System service to councils, which is affecting progress of their planned reform agenda.
According to Khunga, the update is covering the period from 2023 to 2025.
In an earlier interview, she said resistance from MDAs affected progress of the reforms agenda.
Treasury spokesperson Williams Banda asked for more time to consult on the issue of funding.
In a separate interview, Ministry of Transport and Public Works spokesperson Watson Maingo said the ministry has managed to fully implement two of its seven priority reform areas for the period 2023 to 2025.
The Malawi Public Sector Reforms Programme Report for 2020-2023 also outlined resistance as one of the stumbling blocks in the implementation of reforms.
In November 2020, government MDAs, local councils, constitutional bodies as well as two arms of government, namely the Judiciary and the Legislature signed Reforms Performance Contracts with President Lazarus Chakwera under the theme ‘Creating a better Malawi’.
