Stakeholders have commended National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) for the timely, consistent and regular Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) payments in all 11 District Councils supported by the World Bank.

This was said recently during a mid-year review of the Social Cash Transfer Programme Implementation at Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi.

“We are glad to note that in the past six months, districts under World Bank funding through NLGFC have been consistent and regular in their payments. All transfers for the six months have been done (MK 8.4 billion) representing 50%.

 This is encouraging and it means we are on track. We can only move higher from here,” said the Deputy Director of Social Welfare in the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Laurent Kamsinjiro.

Kamsinjiro added that during the review, all districts reported that there is increased school enrollment, increased income savings through village savings and loans groups/COMSIP and that households can invest in agriculture to make their households food secure among other things.

Other notable positives during the review include fulfilment of the SCTP objective of supporting ultra-poor and incapacitated households particularly in hunger reduction, increase in school enrolment and improvement of health and nutrition of children living in target group households.  

However, challenges include poor case management, payments without passbooks, payments outside period, missing beneficiary pictures.

NLGFC Social Development Officer, Mateso Kazembe said the review provided a platform for stakeholders to reflect on how best they can improve, as these are recurring issues.

“Every year, we review how we have performed and sharing best practices as well as trying to find solutions to challenges affecting the programme. However, we seem to be facing the same challenges every year. We cannot continue doing business as usual. We will look at how best we can end these recurring problems. During the next review we should focus on different matters,” said Kazembe. 

Participants included officials from Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Ministry of Economic Planning, Development and Public Sector Reforms and NLGFC, District Commissioners, Finance Directors/Chief Accountants and Principal Social Welfare Officers.

They were mobilised from 11 district Councils targeted by the projects namely Rumphi Karonga, Nkhatabay, Nkhotakota, Kasungu, Ntchisi, Dowa, Lilongwe, Dedza, Blantyre and Chiradzulu.