The National Planning Commission (NPC) director general Thomas Munthali has hailed the 2025-26 national budget statement for showing significant efforts in aligning to the Malawi 2063.
In a statement released Friday, Munthali said the importance of focusing on the productive sectors like Agriculture, Tourism, Mining and Manufacturing (ATM+M) can create wealth to fund the country’s development primarily by Malawians.
“The reality is that increasing the fiscal space, ensuring price stabilisation, having abundance of forex, and dealing with the unsustainable debt, will require a nation that is producing more and not relying on begging or borrowing. We need a private sector that is enabled and a state that intervenes through a developmental state philosophy where market failures exist. This budget, may still have areas that need polishing but makes significant efforts at this.
“What is even more exciting is the recognition of having an additional M to the ATM it becomes ATMM+M. While the strategies specifically for promoting manufacturing did not come out clearly, this is worthy applauding the authorities for. It simply shows that they appreciate the importance of ensuring that the raw materials in mining and agriculture add value to the manufacturing within Malawi – thereby ensuring more decent jobs.
“More importantly, the budget allocations to the mining and tourism sectors may not be that much nominally, increasing allocation to them by 160% and 192% respectively sends a good signal that Government is committed to supporting those sectors as per its strategic orientation – especially given the thin resource envelope.
“This being an election year, one would have expected a lot of populist expenditures. But most of such expenditures like putting aside K10 billion for new recruitments (hopefully in critical sectors) and K176 billion for wage adjustments as well as a mere increase of K20 million in the Constituency Development Fund, are very much expected given the inflationary pressures.
“The adjustments are actually below inflation rates because Government seems to realise the importance of taming the expenditures and avoid boiling the economy further. Matter of fact, even the growth of the 2025/26 national budget itself to around K8 billion is very much within inflation considerations. I presume the so many roads mentioned to be constructed across the country seem to be those already started with contractual obligations, with no new ones being initiated. Otherwise, we have a history of spreading resources so thinly and going against the expenditure containments goals.
“Overall, the national budget framework is looking at addressing the immediate economic challenges and laying good foundations for long-term and sustainable development. While the President’s SONA on 14th February focused primarily on presenting the state of development in the country, the budget statement by the Minister has completed the picture by presenting the state of the economy and what is being done to address the challenges being faced especially around price stability and forex. Some of the measures will only be refined when Government and non-state actors including the private sector get together to agree on the strategies that would work best for the country.
“It is key to quickly point out that this budget like any other, is based on assumptions of some growth level (3.4 percent in this case). This is based on what is known currently – some likelihood of improved agricultural productivity and mining growth, largely. But models are what they are. They should never be taken to be exacts because changes in the local and global economy (including any geo-political tensions and sudden climate changes or disasters) are hard to foresee. What is key is to constantly be monitoring progress and economic events surrounding us and adjusting accordingly,” reads part of the statement
He however, said Treasury needs to scale-up efforts to tracking implementation of the budget.
“What has let us down historically is budget execution. Flow of funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) can sometimes delay so much or trickle in small amounts than allocated in the budget. And even when transferred to MDAs, tracking where the money is spent has been a challenge leading to funds not being spent on what they were intended for.
“As they say, the devil is in the details but an initial reaction having listened to the 2025/25 national budget statement by the Minister of Finance, shows efforts at addressing the immediate and long-term productive capacity needs of the nation. Efforts at sustainably dealing with the challenges of low fiscal space, low forex availability and unstainable debt. It sends a message to all MDAs, non-state actors and the private sector on where Government’s priorities are. And more importantly, the authorities seem to be opening their doors to further engagements in the economic recovery efforts,” he said
