Government says despite executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) granting Malawi a waiver on misreporting of foreign exchange reserves that does not mean the previous government did not misreport the figures.
Remarks by government spokesperson Gospel Kazako follow a decision by the IMF to grant a waiver that would see Malawi saving about K58 billion.
He said: “The position is that the IMF is very disappointed with what Malawi did, the previous regime was sending wrong and cooked figures with an intention to portray that things are working well in this country.
“Yet it wasn’t true, it was a lie, it wasn’t honest, and they aren’t happy at all with what the previous government had done.”
Reads the IMF statement: “In view of the authorities’ commitment to provide timely and accurate data to the IMF in the future and the remedial actions already taken, the Executive Board granted waivers for the nonobservance of the performance criterion on the floor on NIR.
“The remedial actions taken and the additional corrective measures to be undertaken are contributing to rebuilding the reserve assets of the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) and are, therefore, appropriate to achieve the objectives under the 2018 ECF arrangement. The IMF looks forward to its continued close engagement with Malawi.”
Kazako has maintained that the Fund is worried with how the previous administration conducted its position on the foreign exchange reserves misreporting.
“When you are pardoned, it doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t guilty, when you are pardoned it’s just a favour, as a nation we are guilty, but you know in this country all of us can’t be guilty, there are certainly some few individuals that sat at RBM.
“So, it’s a very sad situation, that a nation we have been subjected to such issues,” he lamented.
He added that court cases regarding the misreporting will continue for rule of law to take its course.
The ECF arrangement was approved on April 30, 2018, for about US$112.3 million to support Malawi reform agenda.
Under the combined second and third review, Malawi requested an augmentation of access about US$33 million to help address additional balance of payments needs associated with reconstruction following Cyclone Idai.
