The Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has praised the work of the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) on its constitutional role in the district development agenda for local governments.

The remarks were made by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Honorable Shadreck Namalomba when he chaired an interaction session with the National Local Government Finance Committee in Lilongwe.

‘We urge the NLGFC to continue this nature of engagement and make certain that they are always are on top of the issues in the local councils as well as making sure that development for councils and constituents is well managed in consultation with councils and especially the legislators’, said Namalomba.

During the interaction session the NLGFC presented papers on the Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD), a new council capacity enhancing project slated for roll out in 28 district councils on authorization by parliament.

In the presentation, Coordinator for the GESD Project, Robins Gausi, informed the parliamentarians on the components of the new project, performance based grants, roles of councils and parliamentarians, citizen engagement as well as GESD expectations on efficiencies, audits and balances.

In his ‘efficacy of local governments development funds (CDF & DDF)’, presentation, NLGFC’s Director of Finance Kondwani Santhe provided a holistic case on the related but distinct roles of the two funds.

‘The CDF is a quick response funding mechanism while the DDF is a planned usually major project response fund for development at district level’, said Santhe.

In their contributions members of parliament asked several questions and provided comments and reactions which were responded to by the Executive Director of the NLFGFC Mr. Alifeyo Banda.

Banda thanked the parliamentarians for their commitment and inspiring engagement during the session.

Parliament is scheduled to debate bill 18 of 2020, the GESD authorization bill in the current sitting of the legislature.