Malawi's national budget hangs in limbo

The national budget, which ordinarily should have been passed by the end of June, hangs in limbo as members of parliament are disagreeing over how best the house should move forward.

Opposition parliamentarians are demanding that the Speaker of Parliament declare vacant, seats of MPs who are deemed to have crossed the floor, while government MPs whose seats are on line are arguing that the budget should be passed first.

Leader of opposition and Malawi Congress Party president, John Tembo, still maintains that as far as the opposition is concerned, Section 65 of the Constitution, which empowers the speaker to fire parliamentarians who crossed the floor, is their priority as opposed to the budget.

This is a repeat of what happened last year when the budget was passed three months into new financial year.

Since President Bingu wa Mutharika ascended to power in 2004 on the United Democratic Front ticket and ditched it to form his Democratic Progressive Party, his minority government has had problems having the budget passed.

The National Assembly was suspended indefinitely on June 17 this year after the opposition used its numerical strength to block government's desire to go into the ‘committee of supply' phase of before passing the budget.

Collins Magalasi, an economist working with Action Aid Malawi, says if parliament is not passed after July, there will be no salaries for the civil servants.

“No drugs in hospitals, everything will come to a standstill, there will be chaos,” he declares.

On June 28 last year, Yunus Mussa, deputy minister responsible for People with Disabilities and the Elderly, and 40 other government MPs obtained a court injunction restraining the Speaker from declaring their seats vacant after the Supreme Court validated Section 65 of the Malawi Constitution, which prohibits crossing the floor in parliament on June 15.

Meanwhile the country's financial watchdog, the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), has described the situation as worrying.

MEJN's director of programmes, Dalitso Kubalasa, said the country was supposed to have the budget running by July 1, 2008.

Kubalasa however, referred to Section 178 of the country's constitution which talks about a provision whereby, in the event that the proposed budget has not been passed, the Minister of Finance seeks authorisation from the National Assembly to withdraw a maximum aggregate sum of one third of the previous budget from the consolidated funds.

The money is supposed to be used to meet all expenditures for government business to continue for four months.

This piecemeal expenditure is what was happening last year.

Kubalasa however, said the country is in an awkward position since parliament is not meeting and therefore the Minister of Finance has no where to get the authorisation.