Malawi increases salaries for traditional leaders by almost 10 times

The Malawi government has increased salaries for traditional leaders in the country by almost 1,000 percent, a move which opposition parties Friday said is a campaign tool, the website of The Nation newspaper of Malawi reported Saturday.

Justifying the raise in his budget statement Friday, Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said the chiefs, from the position of a paramount chief to a village headman, are a means of deepening the involvement of rural communities in the implementation of projects that have a direct impact on their lives.

He said the communities would be encouraged to initiate their own projects such as construction of classrooms, teachers' houses and boreholes on self-help basis while the government would be assisting with materials.

"In order to mobilize the communities for this program, our traditional leaders will be required to provide leadership. In recognition of this, government has decided that the honoraria paid to chiefs be increased substantially," said Gondwe.

Gondwe said a paramount chief, whose honoraria was at 5,000 kwacha (about 34.71 U.S. dollars), will now be receiving 50,000 kwacha per month while senior traditional authorities will be receiving 30,000 kwacha (140 kwacha equals 1 dollars) and traditional authorities will be receiving 18,000 kwacha.

The Finance Minister said sub-traditional authorities will be receiving 8,000 kwacha while group village headmen and mere headmen will have 1,000 kwacha and 500 kwacha respectively. The new honoraria are with effect from July 1.

"All these changes are conditional, of course, on the approval of the budget by the House," said Gondwe.

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) spokesperson Ishmael Chafukira also said his party has no problems with the increments but said it is clear that the government has effected the increases as a campaign tool and to thank the chiefs for siding with it.

Chairman of the Chief's Council senior chief Kaomba in an interview said the chiefs are delighted with the increment which he said will give them motivation to work hard in development work.

"We did not expect this. This increment will also reduce corruption among the chiefs because sometimes people become corrupt because of poverty," said Kaomba.

On the 1,000 and 500 kwacha increments for the headmen, Kaomba said generally one can never be satisfied with honoraria but said it is their "hope that this would not be the end of the road."

He quashed the suggestion that this is a campaign tool for the government, arguing that even when the chiefs were receiving little honoraria they were still working to support development.