Amid sluggish economic growth and strained public finances, the Presidency is eyeing an increased allocation in the 2024/25 national budget, it has emerged.
The State House is set to receive an additional K5 billion, pushing its non-development budget to K36.9 billion in the 2025/2025 fiscal year.
According to the mid-year budget realignment documents, this represents a significant increase from the previous K31.9 billion allocation.
The Ministry of Agriculture, however, has also emerged as a rare exception with its budget rising by K75 billion to K555.5 billion.
Meanwhile, critical sectors such as education, health, tourism and mining are grappling with stagnating or reduced funding.
Nation on Sunday understands that State Residences budget, meant to fund presidential operations, has already exceeded its mid-year projection of K19.1 billion by K5.3 billion, with K24.4 billion spent before the halfway mark of the fiscal year.
The Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) is also seeking a K5.5 billion boost, raising its budget to K39.4 billion, up from K33.8 billion.
Meanwhile, the Vice-President’s allocation is expected to increase from K4.5 billion to K5.9 billion.
Transparency and accountability analyst Willy Kambwandira criticised these adjustments, noting: “This is a clear sign of greed and misguided prioritisation, considering that the OPC and the State House already had hefty allocations in the original budget.”
The Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency executive director has since demanded justification for the OPC, State House and veep’s adjustment.
“Unless there is a clear justification, it is easy to speculate that, as we are in the final months leading to elections, these resources are meant for campaign-linked activities such as presidential travels.
“Parliament must stand firm against such inconsiderate tendencies. Again, this is against the spirit of austerity measures as announced by the President himself,” he said in a response to our questionnaire.
In stark contrast, sectors critical to Malawi’s economic growth and human development face severe budget constraints.
Despite its potential to significantly diversify the economy, the mining sector’s budget has been slashed from K8.7 billion to K7 billion—a K1.7 billion cut.
Although its recurrent budget rose marginally from K5.1 billion to K5.2 billion, the allocation remains inadequate to unlock its potential.
Tourism, another sector identified as a priority under the government’s Agriculture, Tourism and Mining (ATM) strategy, has also seen its budget shrink.
The Ministry of Tourism’s total allocation dropped from K9.4 billion to K8.8 billion, although its recurrent expenditure saw a modest increase from K6.4 billion to K7.2 billion.
Education, a cornerstone of national development, has faced a reduction of K20.6 billion in locally funded projects.
Although its recurrent budget grew by K28.6 billion, bringing the total to K188.9 billion, the sector remains under strain.
Health fared slightly better, with a K2.5 billion increase, raising its allocation from K342.5 billion to K345.1 billion.
Agriculture has emerged as a rare exception, with its budget rising by K75 billion—from K480.3 billion to K555.5 billion.
This includes a substantial K72 billion increase in recurrent expenditure.
Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale asked for more time when asked to justify the allocation consideration that the Affordable Input Programme, which is blamed for draining the budget, had been cut by K30 billion.
Minister of Finance Simplex Chithyola Banda seemingly defended the budget stagnation and cuts in key sectors during his budget statement address last week.
He revealed there were ongoing efforts to diversify revenue streams through mining and cannabis projects.
“Government continues to prioritise catalytic investments in agriculture, tourism and mining as part of the ATM strategy,” Chithyola Banda said.
He had not responded to our questionnaire seeking justification for the hefty increases in the Ministry of Agriculture and presidential and Cabinet offices.
The State House and Ministry of Information and Digitalisation did not respond to our queries.
Meanwhile, an education expert Steve Sharra has described the education sector’s locally funded project loss of K20.6 billion as bad news.
“Personal emoluments appear to have gained by K29 billion in the education budget. It looks as if they had to reallocate funds from locally funded projects to salary payments due to the 12 percent salary increases that became effective on 1st April 2024,” he said.
Sharra further observed that pretty much every government sub-vented education institution has had its budget for the second half of the fiscal year reduced, with the exception of the loans board.
“The increase for the loans board is good news. It needs massive capital investment because too many young people are failing to access funding to pursue higher education,” he said.
The mid-year budget statement by the Minister of Finance stated that tax revenues in the first half had underperformed by eight percent, while non-tax revenues had underperformed by 18 percent.
Grants had performed the worst, at 61.8 percent.
Sharra warned that if the economy continues underperforming at this pace, it will spell disaster for critical sectors such as education that are tasked with developing the country’s human capital needs.
“This calls for new ways of transforming the economy so it can generate more resources to adequately fund education and human capital development,” the former Dean of Education at Unicaf University Malawi said.
