By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, August 29, Mana: Chief Executive Officer for Kasungu Municipal Council, Isaac Mkandawire, says investing in performance-based grants (PBGs) in commercial ventures could help urban councils generate more revenue and significantly reduce dependence on the central government.

There are plans to rope in urban councils in the beneficiary basket for PBGs in the second World Bank-funded Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) project.

Only district councils benefit from the project, which rewards well-performing local assemblies with development funds.

Speaking during a consultative meeting between World Bank officials and Kasungu Municipality management on Wednesday, Mkandawire said while the focus of GESD in district councils has been on social investments, urban councils like Kasungu Municipality would like to see the money being invested in business activities.

“In our case as a municipality, we have big potential for commercial investments. Commercial ventures will be handy because if we invest more in those activities, we can generate more revenue to help us provide better services to people.

“As an urban council, we do not get big subventions from government as our counterparts in districts so our focus should be on revenue generation which can sustain us and serve the people better,” Mkandawire said.

He said extending PBGs to urban councils will help to close many gaps in the service provision to citizens which are there due to inadequate resources.

“It is exciting news. The funds are attached to performance so we must perform extremely well so that we can access those resources and deliver quality services to the people.

“For instance, we have not been able to deliver waste management services well because we do not have purposefully built trucks, we want to improve fire services, and the list is long”, he stated.

In an interview, GESD Task Team Leader for the World Bank, Michael Roscitt described the meeting as fruitful.

“We have learned a lot about the challenges, but most importantly, the opportunities that exist in Malawi’s municipal councils.

“We will be able to speak a lot about secondary cities' agenda and recognize what roles municipalities like Kasungu play. We have learned about how results-based financing like PBG could potentially benefit places like Kasungu,” he said.

The first GESD project which ends in June of next year was a $100 million initiative aimed at strengthening local assemblies’ institutional performance, responsiveness to citizens, and management of resources for service delivery.