Opposition parties unimpressed with mid-year budget

Opposition legislators say they are unimpressed with the mid-year budget statement presented by Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe on Friday last week.

During presentation of the budget statement in the august House, Gondwe singled out constant changes in policies as one of the emerging challenges affecting the country`s economy.

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) spokesperson on finance Collins Kajawa said the minister did not provide detailed information on the changes of expenditure made to the 2018/2019 national budget.

“There are major movements which cannot be explained and you really wonder because this is the final review in this tenure of office.”

Kajawa said expenditures in the budget are not improving the living conditions of people in the country.

“There is very little we are doing in the country so why should we continue supporting that when we know that lives are not changing,” the Lilongwe Mpenu Nkhoma Parliamentarian told YFM.

On his part Peoples Party (PP) spokesperson on finance John Chikalimba questioned the allocation of money to youth related programmes in the country.

“The Youth Tree Planting programme has performed badly the money that was budgeted for the youth, what has been spent is 77 percent,” he said.

Chikalimba said the government has also failed in the implementation of the Youth Internship Programme.

“We said all the graduates probably about 5,000 we should be able to accommodate them through the internship but what has happened is that about 3,850 graduates are the ones that were included in the programme.”

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