Councils under spotlight on projects
Government, Unity and Culture says it is keenly observing district councils on the implementation of projects under the Governance to Enable Service Delivery (Gesd) project.
Speaking in Lilongwe yesterday during the mid-year review of Gesd implementation, the ministry’s Principal Secretary James Chiusiwa said some districts have failed to qualify for the five-year $100 million (about K104 billion) World Bank- funded project due to poor performance.
He said non-performing district councils lose out on projects funding for the successive funding cycle, stressing that government will not relent to punish non-performers.
“The aim of the project is to spur development in councils. So, if a council is not performing, why should we continue funding it? It is better to reallocate the funds to those who genuinely need them,” Chiusiwa said.
He said during the 2021 funding cycle, 24 out of the country’s 28 district councils qualified for another funding cycle while in 2022, 25 qualified, showing an improvement in the project implementation.
Districts which did not qualify under Gesd 2 for the 2022 cycle included Mchinji, Nkhotakota, Blantyre and Thyolo.
Chiusiwa said the concerned districts did not receive development funding.
Taking her turn ,World Bank Malawi devel opment exper t Debbie Isser said the progress registered in the past two and a half years is impressive.
She said the bank is committed to funding the next wave of Gesd projects after the expiry of the current programme in 2025.
Isser hailed Malawi for applying the performance-based approach in determining funding for councils under the project and proposed that the same approach
would be appropriate for the disbursement o f Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
“As World Bank, we are impressed with the progress registered in the first half of the implementation period. There are better lessons learnt here and I would sincerely suggest that the same approach be applied in the disbursement of CDF,” she said.
Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament chairperson Gladys Ganda, who was present at the review meeting, said the idea of applying p e r f o r m a n c e – b a s e d approach on CDF would stimulate members of Parliament to utilise the funds well.
“It’s about public funds and where public funds are concerned, there is no room for compromise so if applying performance to allocation would improve things then there is no problem,” she said.
In 2021, 24 councils qualified to access the Performance Based Grant, surpassing the target for that year by 14 councils. This represents 240 percent achievement and a total of K4.9 billion was disbursed to qualified councils.
Out of the 152 projects planned in that year, 148 projects were completed, r e p r e s e n t i n g 9 7 . 4 percent completion rate. Out of the completed projects, 93 projects were functional, representing 62.8 percent project functionality rate.
The total allocation for the second cycle, which is currently under mid-year review, was K12.7 billion.
The project aims to strengthen core national and local government institutions to improve efficiency and accountability of public resources for devolved services.
