IMF winds up review,meets Chakwera

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded its first review of Malawi’s $175 million Extended Credit Facility (ECF) to assess performance and paid a courtesy call on President Lazarus Chakwera yesterday.

The President, in a statement made available to The Nation after the audience with the IMF team at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe, said he was optimistic that the efforts by the IMF and his administration will restore macroeconomic stability.

He also acknowledged the need for fiscal discipline if the country is to achieve the set goals at the end of the programme.

Said the President: “Notwithstanding, as I believe my economic team has sufficiently conveyed during your engagements with them during this mission and in recent months, including those at the Spring Meetings in DC, we are daily cognizant of the fact that the success of the ECF in achieving its intended goals of achieving macroeconomic stability depends largely on our own vigilant management of the fiscus by the meticulous and surgical application of both discipline in spending and wisdom in targeting expenditure on the parts of the economy that are most likely to foster growth and further our recovery.”

However, both Treasury and the IMF could not be reached for comment on the outcome of the discussions over the past two weeks.

But IMF country representative Nelnan Koumtingue said in an interview last week that the mission’s visit was a regular one for, among others, programme discussions.

The Executive Board of the IMF approved a four-year arrangement under the ECF with a credit facility worth $175 million to be disbursed in tranches for balance of payment support upon meeting performance indicators.

The package came at the peak of deteriorating macroeconomic situation and the IMF observed unsustainable domestic and external borrowing as well as the adverse impact of multiple external and internal shocks.

The ECF aims to support authorities’ macroeconomic adjustment and reform agenda aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability, building a foundation for inclusive and sustainable growth, and addressing weaknesses in governance, according to an earlier IMF statement on November 15 2023.