Large cabinet could deepen overspending, donors

International donors warned on Tuesday that a decision by President Bakili Muluzi to expand his cabinet to 46 members could deepen overspending by the Malawi government. In a surprise move two weeks ago, Muluzi fired his entire cabinet. Last week, the president appointed 30 full ministers and 16 junior ministers as part of a government of "national unity". "Although the president has the right to dissolve and appoint ministers as he pleases, there are concerns that money used to sustain these extra ministerial appointments could be better used somewhere else. However, it remains to be seen how the government plans to provide for the additional personnel under [its current] budgetary constraints," Norwegian Ambassador Asbjorn Eidhammer told IRIN. The number of ministerial appointments has steadily grown since Muluzi took power almost 10 years ago and critics argue that the aid-dependent country cannot afford additional top-level officials. "Even before the new cabinet was appointed there were concerns over the size of the previous one. Maintaining cabinet ministers is an expensive business, especially since the country has for the past 18 months had its budget support suspended because of over-expenditure," Mike Wood, head of the British Department for International Development (DFID) in Malawi told IRIN. But Muluzi has dismissed these criticisms saying he wants to give "others a chance", by appointing additional ministers including from the opposition. Up to 80 percent of Malawi's development budget is funded by donors, who said in February they would not resume a US $75 million aid package to the southern African country until the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the national budget. Wood added that the government's commitment to fiscal discipline would be questioned by the donor community when Malawi's economic performance came up for review in coming months. However, development programmes supported by DFID in 2003 would not be affected by the donors' decision to suspend budgetary assistance, he said.