LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)—The country’s street children’s rescuer and charitable organization, Chisomo Children Club (CCC) alongside Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) has raised alarm that the number of street beggars may rise due to budget allocation cut on Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare in the 2016/2017 national fiscal plan.

The two organizations are worried with the continued dwindling of funds in the ministry for the past two financial years, a move that is said to be perpetuating street begging amongst children, elderly and widows.

In its national budget analysis for 2015/2016 and 2016/2017, Mejn, an economic think tank has expressed sadness over the trends around the budgetary cuts to the ministry.

For instance, the ministry suffered a budget reduction from MK5.9 billion in 2014/2015 Financial Year (FY) to MK3.7 billion in 2015/2016 FY and further cut in the 2016/2017 FY to MK2.7 billion representing minus 26%.

While the current National Statistics Office (NSO) data indicates that about 50.7% of the country’s population still lives below the poverty line, Social safety net programs (without Farm Inputs Subsidy Program-FISP) only reach 19% of the poor.

This means that social protection spending will still remain inadequate to reach all vulnerable people in the country. The worst rages on as the much touted cash transfer program only targets 10 % of the country’s population of the vulnerable groups.

This is therefore discouraging to the two organizations’ input during the budget consultation which have been advocating for more allocation to the ministry.

In a continued advocacy work, Chisomo Children Club told the press conference on Thursday, in the capital Lilongwe that the yearly lowering of funds allocation towards social welfare sector was tantamount to vulnerable groups’ right violation which needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

The street children’s rescuer-CCC, Executive Director, Charles Gwengwe, questioned the ministry of gender’s technocrat and budget framers wisdom of abandoning his organization input towards the budget.

Gwengwe observed that the budget allocation cut will escalate most vulnerable group resorting to street begging which is detrimental to the country’s social protection programs.

“Although the budget has been already passed, it’s our role to provide foresight of what is entailed for the social welfare sector. This drastic dwindling of funds in the ministry is worrisome consideration the poverty levels the country is into in.

“With this cut, we foresee increase cases of vulnerable people found in streets to beg in this financial year. The situation has been coupled with low food harvests due poor climate conditions. Instead of looking into these pushing factors, government resolved to reduce further the already stricken sector with budget cuts. This is unacceptable and called for as worst is coming,” worried Gwengwe.

Gwengwe observed also that since 2011, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDs) II under the theme on social support calls for improving resilience and quality of life for the poor and vulnerable to move out of poverty and vulnerability.

He said most vulnerable groups including elderly, the chronically sick, orphans, persons with disabilities and destitute families remain unattended to.

Gwengwe therefore said the development restrain them from engaging in higher economic return activities in a bid to move them out of chronic poverty.

“Evidence of the growing inequalities and continued poverty incidences amongst the most vulnerable is a clear indication that there is need for renewed commitments. It’s vital that government should ensure reprioritization of resources within its budget to ensure that it is pro-poor and focused on the marginalized.

“We therefore calling all development partners locally and internationally to immediately roll out other social protection programs in order to rescue vulnerable groups who are at risk of being salvages with further abject poverty,” appeals Gwengwe.

The Consortium for Street Children (CSC), a charitable organization around the world whose objective is to amplify the voices of street children, promote their rights and improve their lives launched International Day for Street Children in 2011.

Since then, support has grown and the day is currently celebrated in over 130 countries by street children and their countries in addressing numerous myths.

The society perceives children who live on street as bustard and criminals. Actually, children are pushed onto the street because of family breakups among others.

According to CSC 2014, 2015 and 2016 reports still shows growing number of children living in street.

Malawi however tops the list in SADC region as over 60 percent of children leave for their homes to streets with Lilongwe having 30%.

The 2014 Chisomo Children Club‘s head count estimated that about 2,000 an 4,000 children live in the city of Lilongwe and Blantyre respectively whose centers in these two cities rescues about 4,000 yearly from various human rights abuses.