Local councils have gone for three months without Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT) funding from the Central Government, a development that has crippled critical operations, an Analysis of the Third Quarter Fiscal Space for Local Governments in Malawi for the 2024-25 Fiscal Year has shown.

But Ministry of Finance spokesperson Williams Banda has told The Daily Times that the Accountant General (AG) has disbursed the delayed funds to all councils.

According to the analysis, which Malawi Local Government Association (Malga) has prepared, failure to access the funds has affected areas such as city roads maintenance, the devolved 10 percent drug funding and dualisation of Chileka Road.

It says local councils were expected to receive K13.8 billion in November and K7.8 billion in December, amounting to K21.67 billion in total.

This non-funding, according to the analysis, culminated in financial challenges in local councils, rendering them ineffective to deliver services such as public health, education and agriculture.

“Constituency Development Fund has the largest share of unfunded resources for the third quarter at K9.65 billion (45 percent of the total amount). City roads sector failed to access K4.4 billion, representing 20 percent of funds not transferred.

“The health sector did not receive funding for health ORT and the devolved 10 percent of health drugs amounting to K3.14 million and K624 million, respectively. The period under review is the beginning of the rainy season such that the failure by the Central Government to transfer the amount of K470 million to Local Government Authorities (LGAs) resulted into farmers failing to access agricultural extension services on time.

“Other devolved sectors such as Disaster, Forestry, Fisheries and Irrigation inclusive [sic] did not get funding amounting to K828 million for the two months for operations as the period under review is crucial and seasonal in nature,” the analysis shows.

Malga Executive Director Hadrod Mkandawire said Wednesday that it was not true that the Accountant General had disbursed the funds.

“That is misrepresentation of facts. I guess the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs is being misled,” he said.

According to Mkandawire, it has been difficult for LGAs to provide public health services, including ambulatory services, patient feeding, cleaning services and even medical services.

He observed that the third quarter is the time the agriculture sector prepares farmers for the farming season.

“It is the time [the] Affordable Inputs Programme is affected as farmers plant their crops and apply fertilisers [to crops as part of] the rainy season.

“It has been very difficult to operate without operational funds which have, since November 2024, not been