It is widely known that “you can not use yesterdays tools in today’s job and expect to be in business tomorrow” (Anonymous). The fast-paced changes in the technological space globally mean that organizations need to adopt relevant tech-savvy responses to their work and intervention processes.

It has been close to two decades of Public Works in Malawi now. Beneficiaries continue receiving their wages the archaic hard cash methodology. It is outdated because it can easily be prone to fraud and theft as issues of money at the community and such levels are based on trust and mutual understanding.

However, this will be a story of yesterday as National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) is piloting electronic payment for wages to beneficiaries in the Enhanced Public Works Programme in Balaka.

According to the NLGFC’s Director of Economic and Infrastructure Development (DI&ED), Eng. Paul Chipeta, this is a welcome development and a milestone in as far as public works are concerned in Malawi.

In an interview with this paper, Chipeta says e-payment of wages for public works beneficiaries the way to go and under this arrangement, a beneficiary gets his/her wages paid directly into their bank accounts or later other money receiving platforms.

“E-payment for EPWP beneficiaries in the pilot district of Balaka has started well and it has already minimised cases of beneficiaries not receiving their wages, eliminated fraud or theft grievances among others”, said Chipeta.

Speaking on the same during the pay parade for EPWP beneficiaries in Balaka, the District Liaison Officer, Mr Pieter Chiumbuzo applauded NLGFC for piloting e-payment of wages saying it is fast, secure, convenient and is proving to be a trusted way of receiving wages among beneficiaries.

“In other districts where they are still paying wages in hard cash, most beneficiaries think that their money has been tampered with through fraud, but with e-payment, they are assured that no one takes their money, as the wages get straight into their bank accounts,” Chiumbuzo said

One of the EPWP beneficiaries, Esnart Kusakala of Malikula catchment in Balaka was all smiles saying with the e-payment, she now has a bank account which she has never thought of having in her entire life. Kusakala said it is convenient as she also gets a transaction slip indicating the wages she has got and balance in her account which is evidence of the transaction.

Kusakala said, apart from receiving her wages for EPWP, she will also use the bank account for savings she acquires from proceeds of her other businesses including returns from her savings at her village savings group which she is a member.

World Bank has provided K76 billion (USD 100 million) under Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) project to assist local authorities to implement various developmental projects that should benefit people in Malawi, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Lingson Belekanyama disclosed.

The minister said this on Tuesday in Blantyre during a sensitization meeting on revised Local Authority Performance Assessment (LAPA) and Performance- Based Grant (PBG).

Currently local councils receive an allocation of K3.2 billion annually through District Development Fund (DDF) which he said is not enough to adequately finance projects being implemented in districts.

“With the bottom up approach from the project, which will be effective 2021/22 financial year, it means councils will be getting a total sum of K17 billion annually,” the minister said.

He added that K3.2 billion will continue to be allocated on quarterly basis while K14 billion will be funded to councils annually.

Belekanyama therefore called on the local authorities to be innovative, accountable and transparent and further encouraged the authorities to properly manage resources effectively and efficiently to ensure quality service delivery.

He also disclosed that the ministry of local government will be conducting performance assessment appraisals of local authorities to check quality investments that respond to communities’ development aspirations.

Belekanyama emphasized on efficient mobilization, management and accountability of resources and service delivery in local authorities to meet expectations of right holders.

“The first performance assessment will be conducted next month and councils that will not meet required indicators, will not be able to access the funds until they have been trained on proper ultilisation of resources at local level,” he said.

In his remarks, District Commissioner for Mulanje, Stallich Mwambiwa described the sensitization meeting as a tool for helping local authorities to improve service delivery.

“The meeting has discussed a number of pertinent issues in line to LAPA and PBG and this is important because it will encourage councils to perform exceedingly well,” he added.

He said this will also help local authorities to benefit from the grant while delivering services efficiently and effectively,

Nsanje, Chikwawa, Mulanje and Neno council officials attended the sensitization meeting in Blantyre as other districts in the south are expected to attend similar meeting in Liwonde while those in the center and north are also expected to meet in Lilongwe and Mzuzu respectively.

GESD project will run for five years and is being implemented by Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Ministry of Finance, other partners and Local Authorities and National Local Government Finance Committee which is the secretariat.

Enterprise Development Specialist for the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) Mirriam Saiwa says Community Savings and Investment Promotion (COMSIP) groups have the power to transform people’s lives if, coordination and dedication prevails.

Saiwa said this when she visited Tilitonse and Mayankho COMSIP groups in Balaka where she interacted with group members. She aid communities need to embrace COMSIP and work towards set goals, so that poverty is minimized.

Saiwa said time to wait for Government to always come to their rescue for economic assistance is over. ‘Communities should change their way of thinking by joining Savings and Loans groups which have proved to be the starting point for one’s development,’ said Saiwa.

“We have incorporated the concept of Sustainable Livelihoods in the Enhanced Public Works Program (EPWP) where we want to encourage communities to embrace a saving and investment culture through savings of part of their wages through the COMSIP groups and it is correct to say that these groups have room to change people’s lives”, Saiwa said.

She also encouraged all members to work hard in order to improve and sustain their livelihoods

In an interview Balaka District Community Development Officer Carol Nyalugwe hailed NLGFC for incorporating COMSIP in the program.

“This will indeed go a long way in developing the beneficiaries, and in turn poverty levels will be reduced,” she said.

Speaking earlier, Tilitonse COMSIP group chair, Fyness Jamali said they are working hard to operationalize their bakery business.

“We have raised some money which was used to acquire land and also goats which we share through pass on model. We also received a grant which was used to construct a bakery house, now we are working to have the bakery operationalised,” she said.

Saiwa said linkages to different players at local and other levels is an option to speed up their bakery business take off.

The World Bank and Malawi Government have today signed a 259 billion kwacha financing agreement in the areas of governance, water improvement and financial inclusion.

Minister of Finance Felix Mlusu has hailed the agreement as it comes at a time Malawi is grappling with the effects of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The $100 million Governance to Enable Service Delivery [GESD] project was also signed by the two partners.

GESD seeks to build local governments capacity and performance in delivering Service to residents as well as improving duty bearer and service provider dialogue and engagement.

The Executive Director, Mr Alifeyo Banda and the Director of Infrastructure and Economic Development at the NLGFC, Eng. Paul Chipeta attended the signing ceremony.

The NLGFC facilitate implementation of the GESD project in local governments. Its core partners include the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Local Government, and other departments and sections.

The project is a 5year grant by the World Bank.

Parliament has passed the $100 million Governance to Enable Service Delivery project. The GESD project is a grant from the World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved in April this year and was pending Parliament’s nod.

Presenting the authorisation bill, Minister of Finance, Honourable Felix Mlusu said the GESD project is a major boost to the Government’s efforts to strengthen Local Authorities performance and service delivery.

Mlusu said the project would be implemented with strict adherence to the approved Project Appraisal Document (PAD).

The Minister said   the GESD project development objective is to “strengthen Local Authorities’ institutional performance, responsiveness to citizens and management of resources for service delivery. The project intends to among others, enhance local authority capacity and finance performance-based grants to 28 District Local Authorities to deliver priority development projects that enhance service delivery.

The bill was supported by all sides of the August House and was unanimously passed without opposition.

GESD is a results-based approach that will incentivize effectiveness and accountability for performance of Local Authorities. The project has four core components; Performance-based Financing for Service Delivery which has $73.2 million allocation, Intergovernmental Accountability Systems which has an allocation of $3.8 million, Performance Improvement Support with an allocation of $18 million and Adaptive Management and Innovation Support with $4 million.

The project has three main indicators which will assist in monitoring if the project is being implemented in line with the main objective which include; Number of local authorities that increase their score on the local authority performance assessment by 5 percentage points; Number of local authorities that complete 80% of the capital investment projects in their annual investment plans and Increased citizen satisfaction through implementation of annual investment plans.

The project will run for a period of 5 years with Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and Development, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) and Local Authorities as lead implementing agencies.

Nkhotakota district council has in three months, more than doubled financial independence through efficient, strategic revenue collection, an initiative that is living up to the encouragement of government’s National Local Government Financial Committee (NLGFC).

Nkhotakota’s District Commissioner (DC), Blessings Nkhoma, says plying of trade by vendors in streets ignoring flea market was a huge headache. He also says minibuses, bicycle taxi operators (Kabanza) and motor cycle taxi operators were operating in the in the streets ignoring a vacant bus depot.

This scenario had been affecting the council’s activities due to low revenue collection as some businesses were also run unregistered and unmonitored.

“Insufficient funds due to inefficient revenue collection has been affecting our budgets, including failure to pay direct our staff and settle basic bills,” said the DC.

The council resorted into developing a strategy that would engage the business operators to find out why they had been ignoring the readily established structures and educate them on the need to operate legally.

“The first step we took was to have an interface with vendors to convince them to operate their trade in the legitimately established market, and convince minibus operators, bicycle taxi operators and motorcycle taxi operators to operate from the established depot,” explained Nkhoma. 

He said there had also been sensitisation campaigns through various local media platforms on the need for mutual and responsible existence between them and the council.

“When we convinced them to start operating legitimately, we developed a business register where everyone operating these businesses has been registered for ease of monitoring,” he said.

The council has collected MK38.6 million from July to August this year compared to MK17.5 million the same period last year.

The revenue returns have been from market fees from vendors, business licencing and application fees, and departure fees for transport service providers operating from the depot.

The National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) says the Enhanced Public Works Programme (EPWP) pilot phase roll out in ten districts is encouraging in that all the councils have commenced implementation of the EPWP micro catchment activities.

Coordinator for the Project at the NLGFC Stanley Chuthi said this during a week-long micro catchment activity monitoring exercise across the ten pilot districts.

Chuthi said the commencement of the pilot project is a statement by the communities in the ten districts that they have understood the project objectives and will ensure its success.

‘The pilot will run for a period of 8 months in 10 district councils and there are 5 micro-catchments in each district, with an average size of not more than 250 hectares,’ said Chuthi.

Chuthi said the maximum number of beneficiaries per district is 1000 who will be required to work for 12 days per month for a period of 8 months.

Speaking during the exercise, secretary for Chilambalale micro catchment in Blantyre, Rose Sailesi, said the project would help them arrest growing gulleys that have ravaged the area due to land degradation, which has led to receding water levels and declining food harvests.

‘The project has come at the right time’, said Sailesi.

‘We are now doing something about our degraded catchment, we are united as a community, and I am looking forward to improved water table levels, increase in harvests as well as ease of access to firewood’, added Sailesi.

The current roll out works under implementation in the micro catchment areas include nursery preparation, swale construction, Stoneridge construction, marker ridging, manure making, tree profiling, pit planting, construction of check dams among others.

The pilot project phase will mostly encourage a holistic catchment management approach and prioritization of land resource conservation technologies by districts in the micro – catchments.

The EPWP is being implemented in 10 pilot districts of Chitipa, Karonga, Kasungu, Dowa, Nkhotakota, Lilongwe, Balaka, Chiradzulu, Phalombe and Blantyre.

The 10 districts under the pilot were selected based on a composite index aggregated from an average of; the degree of environmental degradation, poverty levels and food insecurity.

Meanwhile Coordinator Chuthi says in the fight against COVID -19, the pilot implementation phase; with development partner support, has also distributed soap and masks to all area catchment committees in the ten pilot districts.  

The NLGFC is envisaging that the EPWP pilot project, will inform future Public Works Programmes through lessons generated from the enhanced pilot.