The project's coordinator Charles Chunga said majority of the councils qualified to access the Performance Based Grants (PBG) for various development projects.

 

"As per the design of the intervention, a council needs to pass both the Minimum Access Conditions and Triggers in order to access the PBG resources. In 2020, a total of 24 councils qualified to access the PBG, surpassing the PDO indicator (‘Number of Local Authorities that are eligible for the Performance Based Grant’) target for that year by 14 councils. This represented 240% achievement." He said.

 

The only councils that failed to qualify included Mchinji, Nkhotakota, Blantyre and Thyolo. A total of MK4.9 billion was disbursed as PBG 1 to the 24 qualifying councils which implemented 152 projects.

 

In the recent project's report, Chunga said by February 2023, a total of 148 out of the planned 152 projects had been completed, representing 97.4% completion rate.

Of the completed projects, 93 projects were functional. This represented 62.8% project functionality rate.

 

The coordinator explains: "For 2021, a total of 25 councils qualified to access the PBG 2 resources. This represented an increase of 4% from 2020 and 166.7% achievement of the target for that year. The target for 2021 was 15 councils. It was encouraging to note that out of the 25 councils that qualified to access PBG 2, four councils had attained unqualified audit status. So far, only the first tranche (60%) of the PBG 2 resources (MK8.3 billon) have been disbursed to the councils and implementation of 273 projects is on-going. The total 2022/23 PBG allocation is around MK12.7 billion."

 

Despite registering satisfactory performance, the NLGFC's Executive Director Dr. Kondwani Santhe said there are issues that need reflection to ensure optimal attainment of the objectives of the project.

 

There is a worry of non-access of PBG by some councils that is denying the citizenry the right to development. The situation has been worse especially for some councils that have missed the PBG twice. This has got serious implications on the realization of the governments’ vision as envisaged in the Malawi’s Agenda 2063.

 

"Issuance of the final audit reports by National Audit Office (NAO) has not been timely and this has contributed to the delays in finalization of Trigger assessment as a final step to determine the councils that qualify to access PBG. This consequently lead to late disbursement of PBG resources. The major issues noted through the audits include poor quality financial statements due to capacity gaps among accounts personnel; delays by councils to respond to management letters and issues raised in financial statements; failure to implement audit recommendations; and general lack of commitment to audit matters by some councils," says Santhe.

 

There is also still high vacancy rate for key positions (Accountants, Internal Auditors, Engineers, Safeguards Officers, HRM Officers, etc) at council level. Currently, the vacancy rate is at 44 percent. The Ministry of Local Government organized walk-in interviews to fill the the vant positions.

 

The project also provide support to councils as part of performance improvement plans. In addition to that, least performing councils were given special attention and it has shown that these councils have improved in their performance. However, it has been noted that some better performing councils have not been targeted with specific support in their weak areas.

 

Some councils still do not have Internal Auditors and it is challenging for such councils to effectively sustain outsourcing of internal audit services. Retention of Internal Auditors in the councils has been challenging mainly because they have not received the needed support. Further, their positions are lower and it is difficult to influence decisions to council management.

 

Citizen engagement has not penetrated to the ground. Efforts have been made to adequately empower Project Implementation Committees, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and citizens to meaningfully participate in project planning, implementation, monitoring, procurement and contract management processes.

 

There has been delayed/non-reporting from central level implementing agencies on interventions being done using the project resources on quarterly basis. In order to ensure that every MDA prepares progress reports and submits timely to the NLGFC (Fiduciary Agent), subsequent resources should only be accessed upon submission of the progress report for the previous quarter. This will enhance accountability on results. Liquidations from councils have not been timely. One way to enforce timely liquidations, would be to only disburse subsequent resources upon submission of liquidation reports from councils.

 

The GESD project is financed by the World Bank as a grant to the tune of US$100 million and will run for a period of 5 years, from 2020 to 2025. The Project Development Objective (PDO) is “to strengthen Local Authorities’ institutional performance, responsiveness to citizens and management of resources for service delivery.” that focuses on the institutional strengthening of district councils to improve management of resources for responsive service delivery in all the 28 district councils.