Parliament passes 2016/17 National budget

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Goodall Gondwe

The Malawi Parliament last evening passed the 2016/17 National budget pegged at K1.149 trillion.

The initial amount was at K1.141 trillion but Finance Minister Goodal Gondwe had made through a supplementary Order Paper that a total of K8.6 billion be added.

Government has since indicated that it is pleased that the budget has been passed this time around.

The House had however seen key rejections in allocations of money but Gondwe stood to his ground to defend the amounts.

Goodal Gondwe
Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe should be excited.

For example, a call by lawmakers for the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to be raised from from K12 million to K25 million saw Gondwe only accepting the mount to go to MK18 Million.

Gondwe says this is due to salary increment of workers in assemblies.

Malawians are to dig deep in their pockets to pay taxes as Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) is expected to collect K748 billion for the budget.

“Tax revenue is expected to rise as the MRA is to collect K748 billion against the proposed target of K698 billion suggested by them,” said Gondwe.

The minister added that government is to set standard tax on goods that were tax free in the country as one way of helping MRA to meet the target.

Gondwe said the budget will get 80 percent of support from locally mobilized revenue.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development has gotten the largest share of the 2016/17 budget.

The Ministry gets MK198.5 billion kwacha.

The Ministry of Education comes second and will get  MK147.6 billion and the  Ministry of Health is third and has been allocated MK95.8 billion kwacha out of the total the total MK1.2 Trillion 2016/17 national budget.

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