The National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) has initiated budget reviews and hearings with councils nationwide to ensure that budgets adhere to national priorities and financial regulations before they are consolidated and sent to parliament.
On Monday, NLGFC engaged with officials from Mchinji District Council in Mponela to discuss the council’s budgetary plans for the fiscal year 2024–25.
Duncan Macheso, financial analyst at NLGFC, explained that the purpose of the meeting was to assess the council’s compliance with the provided guidelines regarding activity prioritisation and prudent resource utilisation.
While expressing satisfaction with Mchinji Council’s overall budget, Macheso highlighted the need for the council to enhance local revenue generation by developing an updated Local Revenue Enhancement Strategic Plan (LRESP).
“By and large, Mchinji Council has complied with the required guidelines except in a few areas, especially on locally generated revenue, where it has been found that they don’t have an updated LRESP, and we have advised them to come up with a strategy by the start of the new financial year,” said Macheso.
Mchinji Council aims to generate K237,592,220 from local revenue in the 2023/24 financial year.
The Council’s Chief Accountant, Fedderick Muyaba acknowledged the absence of an updated LRESP, attributing it to the undercollection of revenue.
“Plans that we have to boast our revenues are the selling of plots, gate collections from community ground, increasing the border entry fees to be on par with Chipata City Council, letting out of fish ponds, and in the future, introducing property rates charges,” said Muyaba.
Mchinji District Commissioner Lucia Chidalengwa, present at the meeting, expressed gratitude to NLGFC for organising the budget hearings.
“I am thankful to NLGFC for the support it gives to councils. We acknowledge that we have a lot of work to do based on the recommendations. We will sit down and do as advised when we go back,” said Chidalengwa.
NLGFC also advised Mchinji council to work on debts coming from water and electricity bills by engaging utility companies to lobby for a 50-50 debt settlement as compared to the current 90-10 arrangement that is being used to settle the debts.
The Council was also advised to push for prepaid metres in all government institutions.
Key aspects of the budget highlighted during the NLGFC meeting included revenue sources such as locally generated funds, central government transfers, development funds like the Constituency Development Fund, Water Resources Fund, and District Development Fund, and donor funds for programmes like Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) and the Climate Smart Enhanced Public Works Programme (CSPWP).
The budget hearing process underscores the commitment of both NLGFC and individual district councils to responsible financial governance. It lays the foundation for a more prosperous and accountable local government system in Malawi.
Mchinji’s total budget is estimated at K25, 307, 764, 530 but it is subject to change before final submission.
