Parliament Wednesday passed the 2025-26 budget, which has been pegged at K8.076 trillion.
This is a slight jump from the K8.05 trillion which was initially announced on February 28, 2025.
Among other things, the hike in the budget has been made following additional funding announced by Finance Minister Simplex Chithyola Banda Wednesday.
However, the day was not without drama.
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This is because members of Parliament (MPs) Wednesday rejected a motion to slash the allocation to State residences from K67 billion to K20 billion in the 2025-26 financial year.
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Blantyre City South East MP Sameer Suleman moved a motion in which he wanted the remaining K47 billion to be diverted to the purchase of 1.2 million bags of maize by the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation.
Suleman said it was not ideal to provide State residences with such a budget at a time the country was experiencing hunger.
However, Leader of the House Richard Chimwendo Banda said there was no need to reduce the funds as the government had already allocated K60 billion for maize procurement.
Nevertheless, he agreed that the House go on with the voting process on the matter.
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However, after voting, 76 members of Parliament rejected the motion while 50 agreed with Suleman.
Consequently, the motion was thrown out and some MPs from the opposition side, including Suleman, moved out of the House.
In an interview, Suleman described the rejection of his motion as “an injustice” to Malawians.
He said the MPs had failed Malawians by denying his motion, which he said could have helped the country save taxpayers money.
“I feel that the allocation is way too much, considering that this government is only going to be there for the next six months or so. Today, rules were not followed and the welfare of our people is not taken seriously,” he said.
Earlier, Chithyola Banda responded to concerns raised by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), United Democratic Front (UDF) in the House.
The Budget and Finance ommittee of Parliament also commented on the issue..
This was part of winding up debate on the proposed 2025-26 financial year’s budget.
Chithyola Banda said the government had allocated additional resources to the health sector to ensure that there was continued service delivery on critical services that have been affected by the suspension of aid from the United States of America government, among others.
“[We have also set aside] resources for the institutionalisation of key HIV/Aids services, the recruitment and training of frontline health care workers in HIV/ Aids service provision, operationalisation of the cancer centre and introduction of dialysis services at Mzuzu Central Hospital,” he said.
He said the 2025-26 budget focuses on boosting production of goods and services through agriculture, tourism and mining to address the problem of prolonged imbalance of foreign exchange due to low capacity to export high value goods and services.
He quashed Thyolo Central MP Ben Phiri’s insinuation that 800,000 jobs were lost by December 2024 due to the closure of some companies.
“This information, Madam Speaker, is misleading and it does not have any statistical basis. I wish to remind the august House that one of the priorities of the government is creating jobs.
“Madam Speaker, I therefore wish to encourage those that may be affected by Job losses to engage in other self-employed activities. The substantial support that the government is providing to Neef [National Economic Empowerment Fund] is for such purposes,” he said.
Among other things, there has been an additional K52 billion allocation to the budget.
The additional allocation has been made towards the Ministry of Health, National Assembly, infrastructure compensation and Millennium Challenge Account top-up resources, National Local Government Finance Committee for blood and blood products, Malawi University of Science and Technology, National Arts and Heritage Council and the Peace and Unity Commission.
Meanwhile, Health and Rights Education Programme Executive Director Maziko Matemba has commended Chithyola Banda for providing additional funding towards the health sector.
In another development, DPP Chief Whip Jappie Mhango has said inadequate numbers on the party’s side affected its stand on the budget.
According to Mhango, the party’s reservations on the budget failed to be recognised due to the high number of MPs from the government side.
“Parliament works on numbers,” Mhango said.
