Africa-Press – Malawi. Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Justin Saidi has directed government ministries, departments and Agencies (MDAs) to dispose of non-functional vehicles and obsolete office equipment.
He says the move will create fiscal space and reduce wasteful public spending.
Saidi said many MDAs were holding on to broken-down vehicles and unusable assets whose repair costs were no longer economical.
He said MDAs must first conduct proper technical and financial assessments to determine whether assets are worth repairing or should be disposed of, stressing that disposal must strictly follow established government procedures.
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“In some cases, fixing these vehicles costs almost the same [money] as buying new ones. That is not prudent use of public resources.
“We are not saying items should be disposed of arbitrarily. There must be a clear assessment and once an asset is deemed beyond economic repair, disposal should follow the correct channels,” Saidi said.
However, governance watchdogs have cautioned that the success of the directive would depend on how it is implemented.
Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency Executive Director Willy Kambwandira said while the directive made fiscal and managerial sense, asset disposal had historically been one of the weakest areas in public finance management.
“On the face of it, the directive makes fiscal and managerial sense but its credibility will depend entirely on implementation,” Kambwandira said.
He said without a transparent, independently supervised process and full public disclosure, the exercise risked becoming a conduit for offloading assets to politically connected individuals at giveaway prices.
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