Vice President Saulos Chilima in his capacity as Minister of Economic Planning and Public Sector Reforms on Wednesday availed himself before Parliament to update members and answer questions on public reforms implementation and the Malawi 2063 vision.
This is the second time that Chilima has made himself available to answer questions from members as he did the same in March 2021.
Responding to a supplementary question, Chilima assured Malawians that his ministry in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Malawi are working tirelessly to stabilise the Kwacha devaluation, inflation and rising cost of living.
He said one of the measures undertaken by the central bank is to reduce the policy rate to make borrowing cheaper.
Chilima alluded to the fact that currently, Malawi is facing exchange rate challenges because there is a deficit between imports and exports (current account) around $800- $900 million.
The Veep said Malawi is a net importer of goods and services that requires more forex which is why the government is working to improve production and productivity for exports to reduce the current account deficit.
“Let me assure Malawians that we will be taking short to medium term painful measures that will better the situation soon. I can assure you that we are aware of the situation on the ground and we will not let the nation perish,” said Chilima
Before Chilima took the floor, opposition members defeated a motion for Parliament to start tackling questions pertaining to the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms to allow Chilima to leave but the MPs said they wanted to have more time to interact with the Veep.
Leader of Opposition and Mulanje Central legislator Kondwani Nankhumwa asked Chilima to update the August House on the following, how far government has gone with the Reform Agenda, whether the Public Reforms have already started bearing fruits, and how interlinked is the Reform Agenda with the Malawi 2063 Agenda.
This is the second time that Chilima has availed himself to Parliament. In March this year, Chilima also appeared before the august House to answer questions in Parliament.