Africa-Press – Malawi. The Ombudsman’s role as a public protector risks being compromised if it fails to access over K850 million to cover the deficit in its budget, the office has said.
The office says its ideal operations budget for the 2024-25 financial year is pegged at K1.6 billion, but its Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT) allocation in the K5.98 trillion national budget, that Finance Minister Simplex Chithyola Banda presented in Parliament on February 23, is K749 million.
MALERA—We are working on grant proposalsOmbudsman Grace Malera told the cluster of Legal Affairs and Government Assurances committees of Parliament last week that her office has turned to donors to cover the deficit.
“We will intensify mobilisation of the resources to supplement ORT and cover the budget deficit.
“We are working on grant proposals to be submitted to the European Union, the British High Commission, the [United Nations Development Programme] and the [United States Agency for International Development],” Malera said.
She added that budget deficits, underfunding and erratic disbursement of funds have crippled her office the past years. Malera then appealed to the lawmakers to engage relevant authorities for more support to her office, which she said has had no funding in June, September and November 2023.
“This forced us to accumulate arrears to the tune of K86 million, which are supposed to be settled before the end of March,” the Ombudsman said.
Co-chairperson for the cluster committee Albert Mbawala promised that the parliamentarians will engage relevant authorities to lobby for funds to the Ombudsman’s office.
“We have taken the issues raised by the Ombudsman seriously. We will ask Treasury for special arrangements to fund critical institutions like the Ombudsman and other governance entities,” Mbawala said.
He charged that it was not proper for the public protector to be accumulating arrears for contractual obligations, utilities, rental service charges, and basic office requirements like stationery.
During her appearance before the cluster committee, Malera said her office has handled 3,200 individual complaints over maladministration acts by public institutions and or officials and resolved 451 complaints against the target of 85, representing a 69 percent increase in handled complaints.
“There has been a 25 percent decrease in the number of resolved cases due to the inadequate resources disbursed for complaints.
“Some of the operational activities were not carried out, and targets were not met,” she said.
The Ombudsman added that 186 complaints were concluded and are pending the implementation of remedial actions by government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
She further said her office carried out inquiries and issued 44 determinations, against a target of 100 determinations, representing a 300 precedent increase from 2022–23, when the office issued 11 determinations.
As per tradition, MDAs have been engaging committees of Parliament to explain how they utilised resources they got in the current budget and plans for the next financial year.
In very rare cases have MDAs expressed total satisfaction with their allocations in the next budget and take advantage of the meetings to lobby for more.
So far, several MDAs that have appeared before the committees, including the Malawi Electoral Commission and the Anti- Corruption Bureau, have asked the lawmakers to push for their ceilings to be raised.
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