Tag Archives: William Banda

Malawi

MoF to start pre-budget consultations this week

Richard Kayenda
Minister of Finance Felix Mlusu

Minister of Finance, Felix Mlusu, has announced that he will this week embark on 2022/2023 pre-budget consultations with stakeholders ahead of the end of the current budget in March next year.

According to the spokesperson in the ministry of finance, William Banda, the consultations are planned to start from Friday this week up until Wednesday next week.

However, more consultations through channels will still continue up to January 18, 2022.

Commenting on the development, an economic commentator, Millward Tobias, said it is high time government started to implement Malawi’s Alonsg term plan of 2063 in the upcoming budgets so as to align the national development agenda with the same.

Tobias said: “Preparation of the budgets and consolidating the inputs from the stakeholders do take time. That is why it is important this time around that we take the views, analyse them; where we don’t understand, invite them again to a round table until we make sure that the aspirations of Malawians are included in the budget.”

Meanwhile, members of parliament will be meeting to deliberate on the current budget which is ending on March 31, 2022.

The 2021/2022 fiscal year is a nine month year ending in March next year. It was pegged at K2 trillion.

Business, Lifestyle

Chakwera’s doomed Canaan! Cooking oil prices soar

Maravi Post Reporter
Cook oil prices up

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse government continues to perform below par as the much touted Canaan is far much dream a year in power.

A snap check by The Daily Times in some supermarkets and grocery shops has revealed that prices of cooking oil have increased by 48.5 percent within three weeks.

We can reveal that a 2-litre bottle of cooking oil is now being sold at between MK4,200 and MK5,200 depending on the outlet and brand from MK3,500 on average three weeks ago.

A five-litre bottle is now being sold at between MK10,500 and MK11,600 from MK8,000.

A consumer we found buying groceries in one of the shops in Blantyre, Yohane Mpokwe, lamented the trend.

“The government was supposed to engage the cooking oil manufacturers and find a lasting solution to this problem,” Mpokwe said.

Representatives of cooking oil manufacturing companies that we tried to engage on the subject could not pick our calls.

But Ministry of Industry spokesperson Yamikani Kadzakumanja expressed shock over the trend, saying the government was still engaging the manufacturers on the matter.

“We met with the manufacturers some three weeks ago, the main issue they raised was global trends in that palm oil prices have been on the increase on the global market and they also mentioned the need to review some of the taxes they pay.

“We requested that they should submit their production cost lines to the Ministry of Finance so that, together, we can be able to evaluate the significance of the reviews we could do on the taxes and I am sure they have not done that,” Kadzakumanja said.

Ministry of Finance spokesperson Williams Banda said the Treasury was conducting interviews to establish causes of the rise in prices of the commodity.

“Once we are done, we will inform the public and find a solution to this problem. When the cooking oil manufacturers submit their production cost lines, we will review and take necessary action,” Banda said.