Don’t leave funding to donors— Peter Mutharika
President Peter Mutharika Thursday urged the Ministry of Finance not to leave issues of funding the National Planning Commission (NPC) to donors.
Mutharika was speaking at Kaumuzu Palace in Lilongwe when he had an audience with members of the NPC to appraise him on performance of Vision 2020 and the way forward.
He ordered Finance Minister, Joseph Mwanamvekha, to make sure that the NPC is adquately funded from the budget.
Mutharika also admitted that sticking to the implementation of national development plans has been a challenge for the government over the past 20 years or so.
Mutharika has since challenged the NPC to ensure that the government implements to the letter all the long-term development plans Malawians agree for the country to achieve economic transformation.
“There is no reason for planning if the plans cannot be implemented,” he said.
NPC Deputy Chairman, Cliff Chiunda, said the Commission expects to come up with a successor plan of Vision 2020 by October next year. The new plan will be aligned to Africa’s Agenda 63.
Chiunda hailed Mutharika for curtailing short term development planning by moving towards long term vision and sustained development programmes that would help accelerate achievement of Malawi’s self-reliance agenda.
On his part, NPC Director General, Thomas Munthali, underscored the need for leaders to instil positive thinking among Malawians.
He also said time has come for Malawians to let go of a culture of handouts and start working hard to transform the country.
Munthali said the commission would make sure that politicians do not derail the future implementation of development plans by making sure that party manifestos are aligned to the national development bleuprint.
NPC is a body established under the National Planning Commission Act of 2017.
Its mandate is to identify Malawi’s social economic development priorities and formulate national vision and strategy for social and economic goals, taking into account the country’s resource potential and comparative advantage.
The commission has a role of overseing the implementation of long term national vision and strategies, and medium term development plans.
The NPC is also mandated to spearhead the formulation of innovative and progressive flagship projects in line with the national vision.
