By Margret Praise Kalua

Nkhata Bay, February 7, Mana:  Nkhata Bay District Council on Tuesday approved a proposed K8 billion annual budget for the 2024/2025 financial year.

Presenting the budget at a Full Council meeting, Chairperson for the Council’s Finance Committee, Acran Chenya said the budgeted K8,079,606,103 billion, will be sourced from  central government transfers, developmental partners as well as from locally generated revenue.

He said a large sum of money amounting to K1,378,463,975 billion in excess of over K5,000,000 million compared to that of 2023/2024 budget has been allocated to the health sector.

“Among the projected programmes in the budget are construction, renovation and furnishing of healthy facilities and construction of Usisya police Unit which are crucial in the district at present,” he said.

He also disclosed that there would be an average of 30 percent upward adjustments in all the councils’ licenses, fees and permits in the 2024/2025 fiscal year as compared to the current ones following the 44 percent devaluation of kwacha.

Speaking in an interview after the approval of the budget, Director of Planning and Development (DPD) for Nkhata Bay district, Edgar Chihana said the 2024/2025 budget is enough to cover all council’s operations, adding that some funds such as Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) and District Development Fund (DDF) have been topped up.

Chihana pointed out that the council will take all precautionary measures before implementation of any project to be assured of the outcomes of whatever is being implemented to prevent faults and losses.

He said: “The council will also keep on empowering the local structures to take a leading role in monitoring the projects happening in their respective areas with a follow up and technical support from the council in order to come up with projects which are tangible.”

Commenting of the development, Member of Parliament (MP) for Nkhata Bay North West Constituency, Julius Chione Mwase commended the council for approving the budget and thanked the finance committee for an even distribution of funds across the district saying it brings uniformity.