During the launch of the 10th Malawi Economic Monitor which is themed ‘Strengthening Human Capital through Nutrition’, World Bank Country Manager, Greg Toulmin described government’s revenue target in the 2019/2020 national budget as over optimistic.

Toulmin said the risk that target may not be achieved calls for careful expenditure management in the year, to avoid a high fiscal deficit. He also observed that this year’s targets are consistently higher than the revenues achieved in recent years.

In response, Treasury Spokesperson, Davis Sado, backed the optimistic saying that government has been financing the budget using domestically mobilised resources, so the targets are achievable. On the other hand, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) says Malawi continues to perform well on tax reforms and dealing with debt.

In its 2019 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Report, Unctad said that amidst nine LDCs in taxation reforms. Malawi has outperformed.