The Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) has queried the over 800 percent increased monthly allocation to the office of the Minister of Education, Science and Technology in the 2013/14 budget after it jumped from K3 million (US$9434) to K28 million (US$88050).
The coalition has also questioned the increased allocation to State Residences and local travel, demanding an explanation from government on these allocations before Parliament approves the National Budget.
Csec’s concerns over the hefty allocations to the minister’s office, as indicated in its budget analysis, follows a similar concern raised by the Malawi Health Equity Network (Mhen) whose analysis also revealed that allocation to the Minister of Health’s office has also jumped from K3 million to K28 million per month.
Presenting the analysis to members of Parliament (MPs) on Tuesday night in Lilongwe, Csec executive director Benedicto Kondowe said an increase of such magnitude to the minister’s office “needs a soul-searching of its intention and expected deliverables.”
He said: “Such an increment raises questions.”
The discussion drew members of Parliament’s Education, Science and Human Resource Committee as well as the Budget and Finance Committee.
In an interview yesterday, Kondowe explained that the increased allocation to the minister’s office applies to most of the ministries although he said the figures are not directly shown in the budget documents.
He said: “There is confusion over these figures and you need inside information to establish what is really happening.
We believe that this is money for mobility of the ministers since there is a directive that ministers should be moving around.”
Some of the MPs who attended the discussion confirmed the said increased allocation to the ministers’ offices with Mulanje West MP Patricia Kaliati saying the MPs have information that the money to the ministers is for campaign and lobbying government support.
Ministry of Finance spokesperson Nations Msowoya, in an interview yesterday, could not immediately comment on the figures and asked for a questionnaire.
However, Msowoya said: “But one thing you should know is that these [Csec] are lobbyists who can pick on anything to justify their cause and existence.”
During the discussions, Kondowe also told the MPs that the coalition was worried that despite being touted as an austerity budget, government has also increased allocations to State Residences with almost K2 billion while local travel for the President’s office has been allocated K33 billion, a jump from K15 billion as allocated in the 2012/13 budget.
Other areas of concern raised included l a c k of provision for civil servants arrear s and increments; reductions in the allocations for the teaching and learning materials (TLM), early childhood development education, and bursary for secondary schools, and also Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must) which has been given K500 million.
Ministry of Education director of policy and planning Victor Lungu, who represented hi s mini s t r y during the discussions, said the ministry takes Csec as a key stakeholder and will take the feedback positively to see how best they can strengthen the systems.
Lungu could not be drawn t o comment on some of the specific concerns raised by Csec.
