The country’s major fish source, Lake Malawi, extends to Karonga District, but not all areas in the district access fish from the lake. This is because some areas are distant from the country’s biggest water body.

Group Village Head Mwandosha area where Mkungwi Fish farmers have their fish ponds in Traditional Authority Kyungu is one such place which is about 15 to 20 kilometres west of the central business district. The fish project began when some community members in the area decided to beat this fish access disadvantage by establishing fish ponds so that they have the fish on  their door step.

“We wanted to know how to raise fish, so we started the project with one fish pond,” says Mkungwi Fish Farmers Secretary, Leston Mwandosha.

“With the K10, 000 that we contributed, we bought 330 fingerlings,” he explains.

Mwandosha says through MASAF 4 Public Works Programme, two fish ponds were dug with 80 people involved in the work. They were receiving K7200 each in a 24 day work cycle.

Another fish pond was added in 2017. The fish harvest is done every six months and that each harvest earns the farmers about over K100, 000 per a fish pond.

“We use the money from the fish proceeds for buying feed for the fish, the other part is shared among individual farmers in the project, while the other part is invested in the village bank,” he says,‘what we want now is direct market. That would be a game changer’.

The aim of having a village bank (which others call Bank Mkhonde), is to let the money grow by borrowing it to members on interest. “Pond fisheries is cheap, as lake fishing favours boat owners because with the dwindling fish population in the lake, one has to go deep away from mainland to find fish,” explains Karonga District Fisheries Technical Assistant, Richard Kamanga.

He says it is exciting that Mkungwi Fish farmers are planning to have their third fish pond completed with money from sale of their fish.

As one way of ensuring high quality of proposed sub projects in the ten  EPWP selected districts, a team from NLGFC and other relevant government departments is on the ground to verify and appraise some selected sub projects.

In the pictures, officers from  NLGFC and  Nkhotakota district council were in T/A Mwasambo, Nkhotakota  appreciating the proposed  sub projects in  Kasangadzi and Thanga micro-catchments.

Among other things, the team wants to find out if the proposed sub projects have potential to create visible and quality assets that will contribute to land resources conservation and  improved livelihoods of communities in the catchments.

EPWP is a programme under the extended phase of Malawi Social Action Fund  IV project. EPWP will replace the regular Public Works programme. EPWP interventions relates to climate smart land, water and natural resources management and environmental conservation.

The National Local Government Finance Committee has transferred a total of MK32.4 billion to Local Government Authorities by December 2019.  This is contained in a press release signed by the NLGFC’s Executive Director, Alifeyo Banda.

Speaking to the NLGFC Newsletter, Budget Analyst Jonathan Banda says the disbursements represents 83% of the approved budget which stands at MK39.1 billion.

Banda says the published figures of Central Government Fiscal Transfers to Local Government Authorities, ‘are for the for the nine (9) month period from July 2019 to March 2020 of the 2019/20 financial year’.

The release quotes Banda as saying , ‘the  public may wish to note that in the 2019/20 National Budget, a sum of MK39.1billion Central Government Transfers was approved for Local Government Authorities.  This comprised of MK27.7 billion and MK11.4 billion in terms of Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT) and Capital Budget (development); respectively’.

Speaking to the NLGFC Newsletter, Director of Finance  Kondwani Santhe says, ‘the  NLGFC promotes transparency and enhances accountability to utilization of public funds transferred to local government authorities, hence publication of the disbursements so far for the 2019/20 financial year’.

Santhe says all Local Government Authorities should display summarized monthly revenue and expenditure statements on their public notice boards for information to the public in their areas of jurisdiction.

The mandate and roles for NLGFC are derived from the Constitution (section 149) and are to: Receive budget estimates from all Local Authorities; Examine and supervise accounts of Local Government Authorities subject to the recommendations of  the Auditor General; Make recommendations relating to the distribution of funds allocated to local governments authorities; Prepare a consolidated budget for all Local Government Authorities, after consultations with the Treasury.  The budgets are then presented to the National Assembly by the Minister of Local Government for noting; and make application for supplementary funds.

Jack Up Government urges Councils

The Government has urged Local Authorities to deliver expected services to their residents in an effective and efficient manner.  

The Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Mr Charles Kalemba said this at the conclusion of a country wide monitoring visit to local authorities by controlling officers from Capital Hill.

Kalemba said it is disheartening to read of resource and funds abuse in local councils. ‘The work at local council is a call. It is not for those who are un-patriotic and would want to get rich quickly’, said Kalemba.

The PS warned the District Commissioners that time for transferring problem officers from one council to another had ended. ‘Those who mis appropriate resources meant for the poor will themselves be answerable and the full extent of the law will take its natural course. I will not protect any such deviant officers,’ said the PS.

The PS said local councils had the mandate and capacity to develop their areas by making sure that development initiatives are people owned and implemented without let or hindrance. The PS also warned against shoddy work by contractors employed by councils saying these will also not be accepted.

Kalemba also further appealed to the councils to change the face of decentralisation, service delivery, financial compliance and faultless expenditure. He said time for millions of Malawians to look up to their councils in appreciation of their good work had come.

The monitoring exercise was done with the support of the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) as part its functions under the constitution of the republic of Malawi section 149 of 1994.

The function mandates the NLGFC to coordinate, consolidate and monitor local council budgets, regulate and ensure prudent use of financial resources in councils as well as mobilisation, allocation disbursement and accounting for financial resources.

Naturally regenerated forest beckons bee-keeping initiative

Over the past ten years, Malawi as a nation has been experiencing various forms of natural forest depletion. A lot of the causes are human generated. These include tobacco processing, charcoal burning and unsustainable harvesting of forest products.

A case in point were the bare, Kafukwe Hills in Mhuju, Sub Traditional Authority Mwahenga in Rumphi, the hills and surrounding areas and siltation of the nearby Kafukwe stream.Realising this, the people in the surrounding communities decided to protect the brachystegia (Miyombo) and other indigenous trees in allowing them to regenerate.

“It is better to allow natural regeneration of the indigenous tree species that are already available because the soil we have here cannot support the growth of exotic trees,” says Kelvin Banda, Rumphi District Assistant Forestry Officer.The initiative was supported by MASAF 4 Public Works Programme in 2018 with the aim to conserve the natural trees already growing and regenerating around the Kafukwe hill.

Afforestation, both tree planting and natural forests regeneration is one of the interventions that MASAF IV projects promoted to avert the effects of deforestation.

The journey to regenerating Kafukwe Hill natural forest started with clearing the grass to avoid bush fires, tree pruning and bye laws against wanton cutting of the trees.

There are various indigenous tree species in the regenerating forest, the dominant ones being brachystegia (Miyombo) and chiyere.

The changing face of the landscape is a testimony of how if well conserved, the forest and fauna can flourish once more.

EPWP preps on track in Phalombe

Phalombe district council has set household graduation from the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC), Enhanced Pubic Work Programme (EPWP) as a priority to ensure that beneficiary households attain economic independence.

NLGFC Project Officer for EPWP in the district Smith Majoni made the indication in an interview on Tuesday while addressing stakeholders in Phalombe on the status of implementation of the EPWP.

According to Majoni emphasis on graduation comes as a measure of ensuring that Social Safety Net Programmes are benefitting a variety of households as opposed to the very same households, a thing he said will facilitate equal benefit to members of the communities.

Majoni also said the project has put further emphasis on Environmental Management Conservation activities such as land resource management and afforestation.

In Phalombe district five micro-catchments namely Machemba Hill, Migowi River, Sukasanje, Sombani-Nkhulambe and Malambwe were identified and currently 1000 beneficiaries from the vicinity of the catchments have been marked and verified.

“We identified our beneficiaries through the Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR) of the NLGFC and the Mthandizi Management Information Systems, and some of these beneficiaries went through a vetting process involving the Area Development Committees,” Majoni said, adding that beneficiaries to Migowi River and Sukasanje micro-catchments will be within a week.

Asked about measures put in place to ensure that this programme achieves desired beneficiary graduation, Majoni said two catchments of Migowi and Sombani in the areas of Traditional Authorities Kaduya and Nkhulambe respectively are going to pilot a savings and investment initiative facilitated by the Community Savings and Investments Promotion (COMSIP).

COMSIP Desk Officer for Phalombe Sydney Nkata said it is in EPWP implementation plans for the district to intensify savings and investment activities that will ensure sustainability of the developments that the NLGFC EPWP pilot will initiate to expected enhanced economic growth at household level.

Media drilled In Enhanced Public Works Programme

District based Journalists have been urged to be NLGFC Ambassadors in propelling success of the pilot EPWP Project in ten pilot districts in Malawi. The remarks were made by Coordinator of the Project Stanley Chuthi at the opening of a three day media training organized by the NLGFC in Blantyre.

Chuthi said that during implementation of the past Public Works Programme under MASAF IV, the media were not involved on the onset of the programme resulting into random reporting and infrequent coverage.

‘This time, we do not want to have the same problem. We cannot have project impact minus the media. We have provided them with all the necessary information and materials for them to understand climate smart EPWP and our expectation is that after this training, they will carry the right message to the community and help create awareness of the programme,” said Chuthi.

One of the participants Bernadetta Chiwanda Mia, of MIJ FM commended NLGFC for organizing the training saying that it was informative and it helped them understand the climate smart EPWP in detail and that the media will now be able to report and make proper follow ups.

“As the media, this is what we need when there is a new project. We need to be enlightened so that we are aware of what the project is all about. With the information we have gathered from this training, we will now be able to sensitize communities, report and make follow ups as the project progresses”.

District Information Officer for Phalombe, Sam Majamanda said the training was an eye opener and that it has helped create a good working relationship with community radio journalists. In addition, Majamanda said that, climate smart EPWP is a much awaited project coming at a right time when the country is grappling with issues of climate change leading to land degradation, floods, food insecurity due to poor yields among other things.

“This training was beyond gathering facts and information about climate smart EPWP and calling for our involvement in the programme, it’s also wakeup call to us as DIOs and  journalists to join hands in addressing environmental issues due climate change” said Sam.

EPWP focuses on Integrated Watershed Management (IWM), covering sub-projects such as land resource conservation, afforestation, environment as well as sustainable livelihoods.

The project will be piloted in 10 district councils of Chitipa, Karonga, Nkhotakota, Kasungu, Dowa, Lilongwe, Balaka, Chiradzulu, Phalombe and Blantrye.

Records management: NLGFC to go digital

The NLGFC has contracted the National Records and Archives to help it get digital in records management. Speaking to the NLGFC Newsletter, Regional Archivist for the organisation, Bright Joshua, confirmed the understanding saying they were asked to do needs assessment and provide a road map for the exercise which they have done.

Joshua says good records management practices, ‘are important for preserving institutional memory, helping in evidence based decision taking and is a hallmark for transparency and accountability’.

Joshua says the findings of their exercise has confirmed the need for the NLGFC to go digital, He says the major basic processes in records keeping needed instituting or improving. He also said the case of centralized or decentralised records keeping would no longer be a case as digital access eliminates such concerns.

Joshua says the advances in technology are presenting unparalleled opportunities for organisations to leverage ICT’s in many areas including records management.

National Records and Archives Services through the National Archives Act Chapter 28:01 of the laws of Malawi is mandated to provide records management advisory services to public and other institutions.

The needs assessment was conducted through face to face interviews, inspections of records management, storage and registry processes at the NLGFC.

NLGFC Drills Accounts Officers in Financial Management

Cases of corruption and mismanagement of public funds in local authorities have become worrisome. While the majority of councils are playing to the book, a few errant officers are not. This has a direct negative correlation on the development of the nation. To avert this, NLGFC has been training accounts officers from different councils on proper utilization and management of public funds.

James Namame, NLGFC Fianancial Analyst says that, while the general public is awash with negative stories about fraud and mismanagement of funds in LAs, the NLGFC is engaging an extra gear in addressing the vice through capacitating council officers. Namame said this after such trainings in Blantyre, Mzuzu and Nkhotakota councils. He says the NLGFC has developed strategies against unscrupulous and fraudulent financial practices and transactions in councils.

One of the strategies is for Accounts Officers to fully adopt use of Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) in all financial transactions.

For Nkhotakota District Council, one of the trainees, George Nyasulu says the training had come at the right time.

“Accounts officers were failing to process payments using IFMIS which is a requirement by the accountant general and NLGFC that all councils should transact using IFMIS, but with this training, the officers will now have confidence to transact in IFMIS, produce Financial reports in time and share with stakeholders to help them know the financial resources for the council and on which development projects are the resources being used for,” said Phiri.

Namame says this resonates well with NLGFC values of making local councils corrupt free zones in Malawi.

The NLGFC empowered by the constitution of the republic of Malawi to ensure sound financial management, effective and efficient utilization of public funds in all local councils.

The era of inconsistent and lack of uniformity in the filling of standard programme based budgets is over. This is so following the successful conclusion to the generation of a budget manual for all local councils in Malawi.

Speaking to the NLGFC Newsletter, Yohane Nyanja, Budget Analyst at the NLGFC, says, ‘for a long time there have been inconsistencies and lack of uniformity in the filling of standard templates. So the manual seeks to guide local governments in formulation and reporting of the Programme Based Budgets (PBB)’, says Nyanja.

Nyanja says this propelled the NLGFC and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and Development to make decision to develop the manual.

Nyanja says the PBB provides instructions to local governments on how to fill in the PBB budget templates and provides what information needs to get submitted.

Nyanja says he is hopeful that there will be great improvements in as afar budgeting and reporting are concerned.

Director of Finance at the NLGFC Kondwani Santhe says the Manual is an instruction and reference tool for local governments and it will go a long way to come up with uniform, consistent and standardised PBB’.

Santhe says the NLGFC is convinced that the budget manual will also assist local governments in PBB formulation, implementation and reporting prioritised expenditure on interventions that bring the best results in relation to financial management and utilisation.

The manual was developed with financial assistance form UNICEF and it compliments existing budget manuals, circulars and other guidelines for local governments in Malawi.