Children have expressed concern over public debt, currently seen at K15.1 trillion.
The children raised the concerns during a pre-budget consultation meeting which the Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) organised with funding from Norad through Save the Children.
Interestingly, with many loans being long-term, it is the children who are expected to pay back when the adults are gone.
Presenting views of the children, Speaker of Children’s Parliament for Mzimba South Rachel Nguluwe said research they conducted revealed that the authorities were failing to prioritise funding to youth-related programmes because of high interest payments on the loans.
In the 2024-25 national budget, interest payment on loans took up the lion’s share of the budget, eating up K1.46 trillion of the total K6 trillion.
The amount allocated for interest repayment is higher than the cost of paying the about 200,000 civil servants that Malawi has for the whole year.
The civil servants’ annual budget is pegged at K1.28 trillion.
At the same time, the education sector was allocated K895 billion, about half a trillion shy of the interest payment allocation.
According to Nguluwe, it is important for the authorities to prioritise youth development programmes.
“We are told that government has borrowed this much but we don’t know how the borrowed resources are used.
“What we want is that whenever the government is borrowing resources, they should ensure that a share of that loan should prioritise child development activities and programmes,” Nguluwe said.
Ministry of Finance Deputy Budget Director Winston Nyasulu said the authorities were taking the public debt issue seriously, such that they were working on a number of strategies to ensure that growth of public debt was contained.
Nyasulu said, for instance, that the authorities were looking at how they could boost revenue so as to curb borrowing.
“Revenue mobilisation will help in a manner that some of the resources will go towards debt repayment while some of the resources will go towards programmes and activities that are affecting various sectors in government, including issues to do with child development,” he said.
Mejn Regional Coordinator Vitumbiko Banda said her organisation organised the activity to provide children with a platform to speak for themselves as to what could make a budget child inclusive.
“Most of the times, when the budget is being formulated, children are sidelined. So, they have issues to do with education, child protection and others. So we thought that incorporating their voices would make the budget inclusive,” she said.
President Lazarus Chakwera is expected to open the budget meeting of Parliament on February 14, when he will deliver a State of the Nation Address.
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