{"id":79435,"date":"2019-06-21T05:41:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T03:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=79435"},"modified":"2019-06-21T05:41:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T03:41:20","slug":"tough-task-for-finance-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/06\/21\/tough-task-for-finance-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Tough task for Finance Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Taonga Sabola: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

New Finance Minister, Joseph Mwanamvekha, might have grinned from ear-to-ear when President Peter Mutharika announced his 24-member Cabinet<\/a> on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

But the jubilation is likely going to be short-lived and turn into a headache for the former Continental Discount House and Malawi Savings Bank chief executive officer when he reports to the office at Capital Hill this morning.<\/p>\n

His immediate task would be to offer quick fixes to an economy which has emerged out of the May 21 elections in tatters.<\/p>\n

Mwanamvekha, a former Secretary to the Treasury and founding member of the Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama), steps into office at a time the kwacha exchange rate is threatening to run away on the back of weak tobacco earnings and donor inflows.<\/p>\n

The kwacha, which was trading at around K733 to the dollar before the elections, now hovers around K800, a development analysts believe is likely to fuel imported inflation with Malawi being a net importer of essential commodities such as fuel and agriculture inputs.<\/p>\n

As if that was not enough, unrealistic election promises coupled with massive recruitments and job promotions have left Capital Hill facing a bloated wage bill against a fragile resource envelope.<\/p>\n

In addition, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer has very little fiscal space to borrow with the economy already in distress with a monstrous K3.3 trillion public debt haunting Treasury.<\/p>\n

Ecama President Chiku Kalilombe welcomed Mwanamvekha\u2019s appointment as finance minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a plus that he was a founding member of Ecama but note that, for us, it is not a must that a person has to be associated with us. We will thus offer advice regardless,\u201d<\/em> Kalilombe said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Ecama chief said Mwanamvekha\u2019s immediate priorities would be to rein in on expenditure to ensure the gap between now and budget presentation should not be detrimental.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing forward, we expect him work at sustaining the stability and, more importantly, ensuring the same is used as a platform for sustainable growth.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPrepare a budget that prioritises development that induces growth and also invest in clearing constraints that hinder the country from going forward,\u201d<\/em> Kalilombe said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mwanamvekha could not shine a spotlight on his vision for the ailing economy in a brief interview Thursday, saying he would say more in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Taonga Sabola: New Finance Minister, Joseph Mwanamvekha, might have grinned from ear-to-ear when President Peter Mutharika announced his 24-member Cabinet on Wednesday night. But the jubilation is likely going to be short-lived and turn into a headache for the former Continental Discount House and Malawi Savings Bank chief executive officer when he reports to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":72091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79439,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79435\/revisions\/79439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}