Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lilongwe (Agenzia Fides) - A "scary" financial law was submitted to the Parliament of Malawi. As reported to Agenzia Fides by Fr. Piergiorgio Gamba, a Monfortan missionary, "after two years without the funds provided by donor countries, which covered up to 40% of the state budget, the government has been forced to make cuts in all sectors, from health to education, even cuts in the program of distribution of fertilizers to over a half million peasants. A program which after years of criticism from the opposition has become untenable for the current government".
The suspension of foreign aid comes from the so-called cashgate, the scandal of the embezzlement of international funds by several politicians and local officials (see Fides 10/11/2014).
"Taxes have now reached very high levels for the population, and the financial law is based on taxes. This is why it is called 'Scary' "says Fr. Gamba.
"This year will go down as a dark year in the history of the people of Malawi: hospitals will have less medicine, schools will have impossible costs (all bonuses for college students were also suppressed) and, more generally, businesses will be stagnant".
"What created an uproar - continues Fr. Gamba – is the introduction of a 10% tax on SMS and the use of Internet. Besides all the existing problems, this tax is not a blessing for social communications, even if taxes on batteries for radios and torches have been reduced".
"Already exhausted by the flood and drought, xenophobia in South Africa (which has forced most of the Malawian migrants to return home) and the decline in commodity prices, such as cotton, which fell to 178 Malawi Kwacha (30 euro cents per kilo), Malawi is at the beginning of a year of hunger. And this was to be the year of the Expo in Milan, of solving food problems for all the inhabitants of the planet Earth: the war on hunger has not even started in many areas of the world, in Africa in particular", concludes the missionary. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 29/05/2015)
