GIZ offers solution to looting
Germany’s financial aid implementing agency to Malawi, GIZ, says the country can avoid a repeat of looting at Capital Hill if government starts using participatory budgeting.
Programme manager for the Malawi-German Programme for Democracy and Decentralisation (MGPDD) Wolfram Jaeckel said this in an interview when he attended the opening of a three-day seminar of local government officials on participatory budgeting in Lilongwe on Monday, He blamed the current traditional budgeting for the looting, saying it excludes people at the local level.
“The participatory budgeting can help curb the reported looting in government because it will involve people working at the local and grassroots levels. The traditional budgeting which Malawi has been using involves participation of directors and other senior government officials and it excludes people at local level,” said Jaeckel.
GIZ is funding the seminar which has participants from several African countries including Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia under the theme Participatory Budgeting: A Contribution to Good Local Finance Management’.
Speaking at the opening function, secretary for Local Government and Rural Development Kester Kaphaizi, who was the guest of honour said participatory budget can prevent corrupt leaders from siphoning public funds.
“Participatory budgeting provides a framework that encourages civic participation and it situates decision-makers closer to those to whom they are accountable, discouraging corruption,” said Kaphaizi.
There have been reports of looting at Capital Hill, a situation that has seen government officials arrested.
Some of the incidences involved ghost contracts, which resulted in the Treasury paying billions of taxpayers’ money to people and companies that had not supplied services or goods to the government.
News of looting followed the shooting of the former budget director Paul Mphwiyo and it forced government to suspend Intergrated Financial Management Information Systems (Ifmis), the computer-aided accounting system.
