CAMA bashes budget: ‘It’s a sham’

Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) says the national budget is a complete departure from what Malawians expected as the Tonse Alliance has discarded its promises.

CAMA executive director John Kapito made the remarks in a statement dated September 12 following the presentation of the 2020/21 budget on September 11.

Kapito described the budget as a “sham” saying Malawians expected the Lazarus Chakwera administration to do things differently after the voters removed the Peter Mutharika administration in June.

He added that Malawians are looking for leadership that is focused, visionary and understands the needs of the people of its population but the budget is a complete departure from what Malawians expected from the current administration.

“Unfortunately the budget statement is unable to articulate key issues that the government that the government need to pursue in order to resuscitate the ailing economy, it has made a lot of assumptions that are unattainable and completely impossible to achieve when it has ignored the basic things that can generate resources that are key to support many projects and activities that are in the budget,” said Kapito.

He also accused the Tonse Alliance administration of discarding its campaign promises such as universal fertilizer subsidy, free connection of water and electricity, creation of one million jobs, reduced passport fees and removal of tax on basic goods.

He condemned the government for introducing tax on cooking oil and withholding tax on betting and gambling winnings saying this will not benefit Malawians.

According to Kapito, CAMA knew that the Tonse Alliance promises will be achieved progressively but did not expect all of them to be discarded in the first budget.

“We also expected that the new administration will articulate how progressively such promises will be achieved overtime with clear strategies which are missing from this budget statement, unfortunately the budget statement is completely empty as if these promises were never part of the vision of the current administration,” said Kapito.