A baseline survey by ActionAid Malawi has identified absence of legislations particularly Access to Information and lack of enough engagement in the budget process as some of the limiting factors for social accountability, monitoring and oversight capacity in the management of public resources in the country.
The study captured information on current levels of social accountability capacity within central government, legislatures, civil society and the media. Six gaps were identified and it came up with 21 recommendations.
Access to Information legislation absence was highlighted as one of the limiting factor to access to public information vital for tracking budget expenditures. The legislation is expected to be tabled in the next meeting of the National Assembly probably in May or June and once enacted, the legislation is expected to help Malawians to access to public information which is difficult at the moment.
It also found that resource allocation processes are influenced more by the Ministry of Finance since consultations are mainly top-down with minimum negotiations. The study therefore noted that supply side players do not engage with the process from beginning hence they are not able to contribute fully to the budget debates and it added that donors play critical role in the resource allocation.
Other highlighted gaps are: persistent corruption practices and theft; challenges in performance management of the budget; political influences and gender insensitive budgets; lack of clear guidelines on the process of needs assessments and strategic planning process and legislative provisions on the role of CSO's and oversight players in the confirming the identified needs and strategic plan documents.
Among recommendations includes; strengthen the decentralization parameters to allow more participation and prioritization of needs, addressing public resource management laws, strengthen capacity to produce publicly accessible monthly and quarterly programme based financial statements and spending reports as well as strengthen stakeholder capacity to do expenditure tracking.
The study was done prior to implementation of the first phase of a five year project 'Strengthening Social Accountability and Oversight Capacity for Rights-based Public Resources Management in Health and Agriculture in Malawi.'
The project aims at developing capacities of stakeholders in social accountability on public finance and the findings are expected to inform activities for the implementation of the project expected to rollout in May this year.
Reactions to the Report
On Thursday, ActionAid shared the report to CSOs, Legislatures from selected Parliamentary Committees and Media and the findings have received encouraging response.
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| Richard Chimwendo |
Member of Parliament for Dowa East and Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Social and Community Affairs, Richard Chimwendo Banda agree with almost all the issues articulated in the findings.
In an interview, Chimwendo said the issue of lack of full budget negotiations and engagements during formulation is one of relevant issues that truly represent current state of Parliamentarians on their oversight role and participation in the budget process.
"Yes, I would like to agree with the findings. There are gaps on how we provide our input to the Budget. The main challenge is that we are given the budget documents a week or so before the passing of the budget and it is therefore always a challenge to scrutinize the budgets." He said
He added; "We feel Access to Information is very important for us because we will be able to demand to access to budget documents earlier as well to access to information that can enable us monitor the progress of the budget."
He then said he is impressed with the project aims and hoped that empowerment of legislatures on budget tracking will help them carry out budget oversight role properly.
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| Chidanti Malunga |
Equally, Deputy Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Honorable Jospeh Chidanti Malunga shared similar sentiments of Chimwendo by adding that "Sometimes we do not know what is contained in Agricultural sector budget."
"Although we are put in cluster Committees to look at the budget documents, still we are not given ample time to look at budget documents. It is important that some times when budget is formulated we have to have time, way in advance so that we scrutinize it and also involve stakeholders in the know to help us critically look at issues in the budget" he said
Malunga also said ActionAid initiative is a step in the right direction and he is ready together with his committee to work with ActionAid in the project.
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| Chikondi Chavuta |
Chikondi Chavuta, Regional Thematic Manager for Food Security, Climate Resilience and Emergencies at ActionAid Malawi said the new project is aimed at strengthening social accountability and oversight capacity for rights based public resources management in health and agriculture.
She said the project which is part of regional programme that includes Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania will help to improve the effectiveness of government system and structures to achieve accountability and transparency on budgeting utilization and implementation.
"We found out that structures that we operate at Government level are quite week and needs to be improved to ensure that they have proper service delivery." She said
Chavuta said the project intends to develop and enhance the capacity of stakeholders especially parliamentarians to oversee the two sectors. And also to develop capacity of issue based CSOs, media and Smallholder farmers to engage in social accountability monitoring and advocacy.
She further disclosed that the project also intends to develop capacity of relevant Government departments on public resources management, social accountability and oversight as well as reduce existing working relation gap between Government institutions and the stakeholders.
"This project will try to address that gap by building the capacities of all these areas to ensure that we reach the ultimate goal of ensuring social accountability and transparency and make sure that we have social accountability mechanisms in place that are benefiting especially people in poverty."
Chavuta also mentioned that CSOs, smallholders farmers, Media and Parliamentary Committees especially on Budget and Finance, Health and on Agriculture are expected to play a very critical role in the project on engagements and provide effective oversight that promotes social accountability in the health and agriculture sectors with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS, SRHR and food security.
ActionAid has been appointed to undertake a phase one of a 10-year project on behalf of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation to: 'Strengthen Social Accountability and Oversight Capacity for Rights-based Public Resources Management in Health and Agriculture in Southern Africa'.
