MINISTRY OF FINANCE ECONOMIC PLANNING

AND DEVELOPMENT

PRESS RELEASE
DELAYED PAYMENT OF SALARIES FOR SOME CIVIL
SERVANTS

1. Introduction
The Government of Malawi highly values the role that civil servants play
in the delivery of public services in the country. The Government is,
therefore, committed to ensuring that all civil servants are well motivated,
well trained and well remunerated, and that their pay is timely. Recently,
the Government restructured salaries of all Civil Servants effective
October 2014, in order to make them competitive. Despite these positive
steps in public service reforms, the delayed payments of salaries,
especially for teachers, remains a regrettable challenge.
2. The Salary Processing Cycle
The Government would like to inform civil servants and members of the
general public as follows:
(i)

The salary processing cycle largely involves seven key institutions,

namely the concerned Government ministry, department or agency
(MDA), the Department of Human Resource Management and
Development (DHRMD), the Accountant Generals Department
(AGD), Treasury, the Malawi Switch Centre (MALSWITCH), the
Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM), and each officers commercial
bank as a pay point.

(ii) The cycle begins at the MDA where a salary funding request form,
called a GP5A form, is generated. This form is submitted to the
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DHRMD for review and, thereafter, to the AGD. Based on this, the
Accountant General requests Treasury for funding. Thereafter,
Treasury releases the funding to each MDA, upon receipt of which
the MDAs prepare payment vouchers. The vouchers are then
submitted to the Accountant General for further processing.
Subsequently, an electronic funds transfer (EFT) notice is issued to
the RBM through MALSWITCH to transfer the salaries to
commercial banks throughout the country, so that the banks can
credit individual officers accounts.
(iii) The paper work through each of these offices can, unfortunately, take
longer than planned due to incomplete and inaccurate data arising
from processing errors, as well as speed and connectivity challenges
associated with the current state of the software operating the
Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). At
times, both MALSWITCH and the RBM also experience
consequential technical challenges in the timely transmission of the
data. Moreover, when any of the systems in the cycle fails, data has
to be transferred manually from one system to another, a process that
is time consuming. All these challenges are at the centre of the delays
experienced in the payment of civil servants salaries.
(iv) Currently, the entire civil service has close to 160,000 employees, of
whom about 77,000 are teachers on the payroll of the Ministry of
Education, Science and Technology (MoEST). In order to expedite
payment, the teachers salaries are processed in 248 cost centres
across the country. However, there have been occasional delays in
the payment of teachers salaries over the last three years, largely due
to the growing number of employees and the aforesaid system
challenges. Hence, whilst the salary processing cycle is the same for
all MDAs, the delays tend to become more pronounced in the
MoEST, as was recently the case with respect to October 2014
salaries for some cost centres, such as Blantyre Urban, Mulanje and
Chiladzulu.
3. Measures to Improve Salary Processing
The Government further wishes to inform all teachers and the general public
that the following measures are being taken to address the challenges:
(i)

The Government has commenced decentralisation of the preparation

of the GP5A forms and the preparation of vouchers for large
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ministries like MoEST. Moreover, the Government has embarked on

a programme to decentralize the payment of teachers salaries. The
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is currently doing a
pilot of the same in two divisions in the Southern Region, namely
the Shire Highlands Education Division (SHED) and the South West
Education Division (SEWD). Once completed, this process will
facilitate a speedy processing of salaries.
(ii)

The Government has established a High Level Monitoring

Committee which allows all parties involved to provide progress
reports in the processing of salaries. The meetings, in addition, aim
at working on the challenges to identify and implement lasting
solutions.

(iii)

The Government is working towards interfacing of the Human

Resources Management Information System and IFMIS, so that
personnel data can be shared in real time with the accounting
software.

(iv)

The Government will make full use of the National Switch which
will soon become operational, in order to facilitate the speedy
payment of salaries.

(v)

The Government has resolved to address the challenges associated

with the IFMIS software without further delays.

4. Conclusion
The Government sincerely regrets the delays experienced in paying salaries
to some civil servants. Discussions have been held with all the stakeholders
involved in the processing of salaries to make sure that the problems are
ironed out, and progress review meetings have also been scheduled. Civil
Servants and the general public are hereby informed that the Government is
giving this challenge all the attention that it deserves.

Ronald Mangani
SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY
27 November 2014
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