Finance Minister Sosten Gwengwe is expected to present the 2023/2024 National Budget today at Parliament, the fourth one under the Tonse Alliance administration.
The budget comes at a time Malawians are expected the Lazarus Chakwera led government to address the current economic instability as well as public debt.
Former Minister of Finance, under the former administration, Joseph Mwanamvekha said he forsees a budget that will not bring hope to Malawians.
“I don’t see a good budget. The assumptions have never been realistic and I have said this many times. So I don’t expect a miracle,” Mwanamvekha told the local media
He added; “Most of the macroeconomic indicators, be it inflation, exchange rate, interests rate they are all unstable, they are all declining at a fast pace. So I expect the minister of finance to address Economic stability and make sure the Kwacha is stable.
“As long as we don’t address issues of exchange rate, as long we don’t address issues of interests rate, our economy will never be stable
“Government through ministry of finance acknowledged that the level of debt at the moment is unsustainable and if he doesn’t address this issue, it will mean that even as a country we will have a problem and it will reach a time that this country will not be able to pay back its debts”.
Economics Association of Malawi (ECAMA) through Executive Director Frank Chikuta said government need to come up with realistic assumptions to effectively implement the budget saying wrong assumptions have affected the implementation of the previous budgets.
Chikuta said that the pressure that the country is facing now in terms of foreign currency and exchange rate should be taken into account when the coming budget is being formulated.
He added that the issue of massive blackouts should also be taken into consideration because it is contributing to decrease in tax collection because if business people who rely on electricity are failing to conduct their businesses normally, it means that government will not be able to collect taxes.
During one of the ministerial pre-budget consultation meetings, Gwengwe pledged to deliver an inclusive 2023/2024 budget that will work for Malawians.
Gwengwe asked people in the country to avoid looking at budget as expenditure because a budget is revenue versus expenditure.
“Over the years , you have seen that there has been misalignment of what we get as revenue and what we spend, and this has created a lot of gap to our budget to an extent that our budget deficits have continued to grow up and forcing government to indulge in borrowing just to make sure that the budget is implemented,” he said
The approved 2022/2023 National Budget was pegged at K2.85 trillion.
