Opposition political parties and some social commentators have asked government to institute an investigation into the K577 billion plundered during all the past administrations.
Malawi Congress Party, Publicity Secretary, Jessie Kabwila and People’s Party Acting President, Uladi Mussa made the statements at the 5th All-inclusive Stakeholders Conference in Blantyre on Wednesday.
Both Kabwila and Mussa said government should not make excuses regarding the budgetary support from donors and the current state of the economy.
“The donors are not interested to support our budget because of the current leadership. The leadership is not interested to investigate the K577 billion, instead it is concentrating on the cashgate which took place during the previous administration,” said Kabwila.
Mussa urged government to act in a fair manner by responding to the needs of the donors.
“It is not true that the donors have completely pulled out their aid all over the world. There are countries like Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique as well as Sierra Leone which are still getting budgetary support from the European countries,” he said.
He said government must start acting responsibly and further convince the donors to resume its support to the country.
In his response, Finance Minister, Goodall Gondwe urged the public to understand that the K577 billion alleged leakage loss from government is an amount which was not reconciled since 1969.
“Since 1964 up-date, we have not had any reconciliation of accounts in government. However, we have started doing the reconciliation from 1969 and we have put in place a system that such things should not happen again,” said Gondwe.
He went further to announce that the British and German governments have declared their interest to start supporting the country’s budget mainly on the votes that have huge amounts citing health, education and agriculture.
Gondwe said the model of support would not be different from the off-budget which the donors are currently using at present.
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