Lipenga calls for fiscal prudence

Malawi’s Finance Minister Ken Lipenga has warned against misuse of donor funds, saying doing so hurts taxpayers who have to cough more to pay back.

Lipenga said this in the capital, Lilongwe in an interview after signing a 30 million euro (K12.8 billion) agreement with the European Union and Unicef aimed at scaling up activities of the Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (Wash) programme in the country.

Said Lipenga: “It is pleasing to note that donor partners continue to assist us in various projects that we are undertaking, but it is disheartening that sometimes the money is misused and then we call such misuse as ineligible expenditures.

“To me, the term ‘ineligible expenditures’ is just a polite way of covering abuse or misuse or in Chichewa kusolola. As government, we do not want this to continue and we are putting various measures to make sure that this tendency stops forthwith.”

He said misuse of donor money whether a grant or soft loan affects all Malawians since the government uses taxpayer’s money to repay.

“Even if the money were a grant, if you misuse it, it then turns into a loan and the taxpayer is forced to repay,” he said.

Charge d’Affaires of the EU delegation to Malawi Milko Van Gool also agreed with Lipenga that prudent use of donor funds helps many people to access development.

“We have attached no conditions to the funds that we have given the Government of Malawi, but our call is that the funds must be properly used so that they reach the intended people. It is not good for funds to be misused and we are hopeful that Malawians will benefit from this grant,” said Van Gool.

He said the 30 million euro is part of the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number seven on sustainable water supply and sanitation.