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Aid taps expected to open for new Malawi

By Jon Herskovitz

LILONGWE (Reuters) – Malawi’s finance minister expects suspended

international aid to be restored under its new president, Joyce Banda, helping prop up a budget increasingly under strain

after the previous president picked fights with overseas donors.

Malawian Vice-President Joyce Banda addresses a media conference in the capital

Lilongwe April 7, 2012. Banda took over the running of the southern African nation on Saturday after the death of President

Bingu wa Mutharika, and fears of a succession struggle receded as state institutions backed the constitutional handover.

REUTERS/Mabvuto Banda

Finance Minister Ken Lipenga

also told Reuters on Monday that former President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died on Thursday of a heart attack, had blocked

plans called for by the International Monetary Fund to devalue the currency because he was worried the move would hurt the

poor.

Aid-dependent Malawi slid into economic crisis over the past year as Mutharika, a professorial but temperamental

former World Bank economist, squabbled with major western donors who then froze millions of dollars of assistance that had

traditionally bankrolled about 40 percent of the budget.

“I expect the resumption of aid will happen,” Lipenga

said.

Foreign diplomats showed their support for Banda by visiting her residence even before she had been officially

installed, but so far there have been no concrete signs the West is preparing to restart the flow of aid.

The finance

minister has not yet discussed economic policy with Banda since she became president but he thinks she will be able to

address some issues that raised red flags with donors including suppression of human rights and the media.

“The donors

were emphasising the concerns of the Malawi people,” he said.

Mutharika plunged the country into isolation last year

when he expelled the ambassador from former colonial master and biggest aid donor Britain, who said in a leaked diplomatic

cable Mutharika was autocratic and intolerant of criticism.

 

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Aid taps expected to open for new Malawi

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