The government of Malawi through Ministry of Finance has curbed domestic travel of Cabinet Ministers and Deputies to eight per month as part of austerity measures.
The development comes barely two months after President Mutharika restricted foreign trips to three per year.
Goodal Gondwe revealed this on Wednesday in an interview with the Press, saying the money that will be saved from these domestic travels will be used to support the Zero-Aid Budget implemented by President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika due to withholding of donor aid.
“Apparently the restriction has been there for some time now. Ministers are not supposed to make more than eight domestic trips in a month. This was an addition to the foreign trips restrictions of last year which limited ministers’ travel to three in a year,” said Goodall Gondwe.
Gondwe also disclosed that government also intends to take the measure to parliament during the midyear budget review in February this year to lobby MPs to also reduce their foreign and domestic travel that are bankrolled by government.
President Mutharika has embarked on several austerity measures aiming at cutting cost and one of it was reducing the number of Ministers and Deputies to 20.
