Minister of Finance, Economic and strategic planning and Development Joseph Mwanamvekha has challenged parastatals to reach target agreements with government.

Mwanamvekha said it is important for the parastatals to sign performance target agreements with government as it assists to monitor if they are making profits or losses.

Mwanamvekha said this during a signing ceremony of 2019/20 shareholder letters of expectations at the Bingu International Conventional Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.

The minister said letters of expectations assist parastatals who are making losses to find reasons and solutions to improve on their performance while those making profits are made to hold on to their strategies.

Mwanamvekha added that it would also assist them to ensure that they are able to pay dividends to the government as their shareholder.

“We are aware that some parastatals are not able to pay their dividends but government will monitor and assist them to make profit and pay dividends to government for the development of the country,” he said.

The minister said with letters signed by parastatals government will monitor payments of taxes to Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) and pensions to pension funds like old mutual among others in the country.

The performance of the parastatals is key way to performance of budget in as far as paying dividend is concerned. If parastatals are not performing in-flows into the budget inform of dividend it will be very minimal.

“For those who are not going to abide by the agreement, they will receive penalties for nonperformance,” he said.

Chairperson of council from University of Malawi, Dr. Billy Gama said they work on behalf of government as such they will abide by the agreement.

“The agreement will encourage us to perform better on the ground than before, if we are not performing and not abiding by the agreement, government should give us the required solution,” he said