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The role of parliament in the implementation of the PRSP
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6. Hearing with the Civil Society held by the Committee
Although the findings of the civil society networks were at most tentative some issues were already coming out clearly and contributed to the committee's understanding of the problems of implementing a pro poor budget. The committee had also invited representatives from ministries concerned in order to seek explanations in respect of some of the findings. But at the outset, the constraints need to be spelt out. The three networks on agriculture, health and education did their surveys on a voluntary basis. Resource constraints included lack of transport and time. Quite often their samples were limited because they had to work in areas where their members were already operating. In case of health, only a limited number of rural health clinics (36 in 6 districts), were visited. In case of education only 51 schools in 6 districts out of the 4,600 schools or so countrywide were visited in January 2002. All of them could only report on budget performance for half of the year, namely July to December 2001, and at that stage they had no information on the trends for the remaining half of the year.
In the case of the agriculture network, CISANET, it is indisputable that agriculture was allocated more money in the 2001/2002 financial year than was the case in the year before. This does not mean that one must be blind to its dwindling share relatives to the overall budget. However, a survey of 9 Extension Planning Areas (EPAs) covering 53 field assistants reveals that this increase in budget allocation was not necessarily translated into more field visits by extension workers. Findings of CISANET can be summarized as follows:-
- Government in the 2001/02 budget indicated an intention to fill 3,900 extension posts. The Ministry of Agriculture admitted that this had not happened and that there were approximately 1,400 extension posts filled. Based on CISANET`S sample, it appears that the Ministry would need over 1,628 additional field Assistants to provide the most basic services to all villages.
- The number of Field Assistant visits to villages did not increase during the year under review. Given shortages of staff, 6 Field assistants in an EPA must visit an average of 79 villages outside their assigned sections in order to cover all villages in the EPA.
- 75% of Field Assistant stated that they were unable to reach villages, due to lack of transport. 22% of the respondents had not received
- transport and travel allowances (T&T) in 6 months and 11% had never received any T&T. At the EPA level, District Officers faced the same problem causing them to achieve only half of their planned follow-up visits to their Field Assistants.
- Almost 50% of the Field Assistants interviewed said that after the distribution of targeted input packs (TIP) participation in all agricultural programmes dropped among farmers who did not receive TIP packs.
- There was lack of motivation for the farmers to attend training sessions, as the program neither provides snacks nor stipend allowances. Most of the EPAs have training facilities that they do not use due to attitudinal problems.
- All EPAs visited had land for demonstration purposes (average of 3.35 hectares) each. However, most of the land was not utilized because of lack of labour and inputs.
- There were a lot of vacancies for all subject-matter specialist positions. Of concern is the fact that there was no irrigation officer at the EPA level in all the sampled EPAs.
The limitations of the survey have already been mentioned. The important consideration therefore is not whether these findings were full proof but that some models are being developed in a collaborative manner between parliament and civil society.
Secondly, since the parent ministries were always invited to the hearings of the committee the opportunity to verify the findings was afforded. The Ministries were set on alert because they were made aware that expenditure was being tracked. Ultimately the issue would be raised on the floor of parliament and there was need to anticipate hostility.
The Budget and Finance Committee views extension as crucial in the effort to reverse the stagnation in production of food crops and exportables. An extension programme that delivers is a necessary input in the fight against hunger. In this respect it is most gratifying to note that both the Zambian and the Malawian PRSP emphasize agriculture as one of the strategies in the fight against the poverty.
For completeness sake it is necessary to refer to only a few major findings of the civil society networks on health and education. A critical concern in Malawi over the years has been inadequacy of drugs compounded by the problem of pilferage in and out of the Medical Stores. In the Budget Statement therefore government decided to improve the per capita spending target. During the survey though this looked unattainable due to the following findings:-
- District Health Officers did not always receive the drugs they request from Central Medical Stores and that twenty-six vital drugs were out of stock at one or more of the fifty-one clinics surveyed.
- Of thirty-six clinics surveyed all had at least one vital drug out stock, and one clinic had fifteen vital drugs out of stock out of the required sixteen. Drugs for asthmatics were commonly out of stock.
- Further, record keeping was poor and tally cads were not serving their purpose. The result was that drugs were transported in boxes that allowed for pilferage. In other words, the dispatches did not necessarily tally with what was received.
- To compound the situation the 2002/2003 budget ceilings communicated to the Ministry of Health by Treasury on the day of the hearing indicated that the Drug Vote, admittedly from only local resources, would not exceed K500 million. This was less than the K1.38 billion allocated for the financial Year 2001-2002. The fear which was expressed was that if donor resources did not improve the situation significantly Malawi would not qualify for completion point since substantial rises in the drugs vote was a policy condition in the interim PRSP.
- Finally the Ministry did not produce information to the network on the number of health workers to be trained during the year. Much to the credit of the Ministry, however, monthly salaries and benefits for frontline health workers had gone up, the highest average by 113 per cent and the lowest by 43 per cent. Needless to say these changes continue to be grossly inadequate to attract the most qualified and committed candidates of health care delivery.
In respect of civil society coalition for quality basic education survey, critical finding were:-
- Only 51 per cent of the schools surveyed received teaching and learning materials during the period July to December 2001. 49 percent did not receive any learning materials.
- There were also gross inequalities in the distribution. Urban schools and schools near highways reportedly received more than rural and remote schools. One school in the sample reportedly accounted for half the deliveries to the 51 schools that had received deliveries.
- Finally the survey revealed that at the present pace the Ministry's target to reduce the number of untrained teachers to 10 percent by the year 2015 would not be achieved until the year 2040. Much to Government's credit, however, there was over performance in respect of allowances and basic salary increases for teachers. Salaries rose by an average of 68 percent, well and above 35.5 per cent targeted by the Minister of Finance.
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