Committee says low funding to cripple oversight bodies

Parliament’s cluster committee on Legal Affairs and Government Assurance fears reduced financial allocations to governance and rule of law institutions in the 2022/23 national budget will cripple their operations.

Co-chairperson Peter Dimba said this on Friday when he presented the committee’s report in Parliament.

He pointed out that K61.2 billion, which is 0.5 percent of gross domestic product and 2.2 percent of the total budget, has been allocated to oversight institutions.

Dimba described the money— expected to cater for wages, salaries and development projects—as inadequate; hence, may affect their operational effectiveness.

The committee considered nine votes including those of Judiciary, Ministry of Justice, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Registrar General’s department, Administrator General’s Department, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Legal Aid Bureau, Office of Ombudsman and Malawi Law Commission.

Said Dimba: “This is taking into consideration that the current budget runs for nine months as opposed to the 2022/2023 budget which will run for 12 months. This reduction will result in serious operational challenges for the institutions.”

The cluster committee also noted that the institutions had difficulties to access monthly funding due to integrated financial management information system (Ifmis) failure, lacked accommodation and transport, forcing government to spend more on hiring vehicles.

The committee has, therefore, called on Treasury to increase budget allocation for the Judiciary by K6.7 billion to offset its budget deficit. The amount includes the K2.1 billion for the procurement of vehicles for new judges.

The Judiciary was allocated K14 billion out of the requested K20.7 billion it requested for, which is 0.7 percent of the national budget.

The report applauds Treasury for providing additional K200 million to Ministry of Justice to start its office annex construction project and another K200 million for operational vehicles.

The committee noted that despite the increase of K4.6 billion, the ministry has been given zero ceiling towards development budget against their initial submission of K1 billion.

On allocations to DPP, the committee noted budget cut of the directorate’s core service of criminal prosecutions by around K30 million and implored the Treasury to revise the figures.

Said Dimba: “It was noted that the DPP was facing difficulties to retain lawyers due to uncompetitive conditions of service in the civil service.

“The committee reiterated its plea to the government to ensure that it should find ways of attracting and retaining lawyers in the system instead of just training them.”

Commenting on allocation to ACB, he informed the House that K4.4 billion for personal emoluments will not be enough as the bureau will be recruiting 62 members of staff.

He added that the development budget for preliminary works for construction of new ACB offices will not be enough and as per advice from the director of buildings, the bureau needs about K642 million for the initial works.

The committee also observed in its report that the Office of Ombudsman has a shortfall of K320 million which, among others, negatively affects its functions.

Said Dimba: ” A minimum of 500 individual complaints will not be resolved, 150 personnel training on the role of hospital ombudsman will not be conducted; hence, affecting the functions of about 150 health facilities and 500 000 people living in hard-to-reach areas will not have access to timely services of the office.”

Centre for Social Accountability Initiative and Transparency (Csat) executive director Willy Kambwandira in an interview said the performance of oversight institutions is not only dependent on money but also on commitment of staff to do their work.

He claimed that government has also used Ifmis to cripple the institutions, saying commitment must go beyond increased funding.

Said Kambwandira: “As Csat, we ask the Government Assurance Committee to be more proactive and rise to the occasion to ensure that the institutions are independent and are performing their work without interference.

“Some of the recommendations in the report include that the government should address with speed the leadership lapse at the Administrator General as the office has for the past two years been running with no substantive administrator general.”