The National Assembly has passed three government Loan Authorisation Bills which are aimed at ensuring continuous flow of foreign exchange in the country.
The Bills are: African Development Fund (Agriculture Emergency Food Production Facility) K29 billion, International Development Association (Second Additional Financing for Malawi Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Project), K25 billion and International Development Association (Additional Financing for Malawi Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project), K193 billion.
Whilst acknowledging rising levels of debt the country has, Minister responsible for Finance Sosten Gwengwe said Malawi’s debt levels still stand at a considerable rate as compared to other countries.
“Our debt compared to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is hovering around 62 percent and it has been stagnant on 62 percent these past two years.
But what has been is really very sticky for us as a country is the debt sustainability, our ability to pay when those interest charges fall due and the biggest problem is also coming in because most of them have to be paid in dollars and the country is going through critically low reserve of dollars,” said Gwengwe.
Responding to the adoption of the Bills, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) through its spokesperson on finance Ralph Jooma has stressed on the need for timely preparation of such monetary Bills to cushion Malawians from economic hardship.
He said: “What we were raising to them is that this Bill is coming very late because the devaluation occurred a few months ago and you know that after devaluation the people were hit at close range.
So we were saying that we should always prepare in advance, we should always prepare these Bills in time because the purpose is to cushion the vulnerable, the impoverished, the people who are living in the rural masses.”
Meanwhile, Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Health Matthews Ngwale said the adoption of the Second Additional Financing for Malawi Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Project would assist in the fight against the pandemic and administration of vaccines.
“That Bill is a very important because as I said this country has very low vaccination rate and therefore this financing will help in buying more vaccines, it will also help in the drive to make our people in this country to subscribe to the vaccination,” said Ngwale.
