By Jones Gadama
During the previous regime’s 5 years, the Constituency Development Fund was a token. At K200 million. It could barely patch a classroom block. It was development by name, not by impact.
Then came a promise that many called impossible.
During the 2025 campaign, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika looked Malawians in the eye and said: I will raise CDF to K5 billion.
The cynics laughed. The opposition dismissed it as campaign rhetoric. Economic commentators called it populist and unsustainable.
Today, they are all eating their words.
Six months into the 2026/27 fiscal year, APM’ first budget, that promise is now concrete, steel, and mortar across Malawi. The Reformed Constituency Development Fund is not just a budget line; it is a revolution.
What makes it a masterstroke?
First, it is decentralization in its truest form. Power and resources have finally left Capital Hill and gone to the people in Bangula Nsanje, in Nthalire Chitipa, in Kamwendo Mchinji, in every valley and plateau.
Second, it is an economic stimulus. The flurry of tender adverts in local papers is not just news — it is jobs for local contractors, for bricklayers, for young people. It is money circulating in rural economies that were starved for five years. Building and strengthening families.
Third, it exposes the failure of the past. For five years, we were told there was no money. Now, with the same economy, we see money for development in every constituency. The question Malawians must ask is: where was our money going? And seriously what was the K21 trillion, borrowed by the previous used for?
District Commissioners are busy. MPs are busy. Councillors are busy. For once, they are busy building, not explaining failure.
Of course, K5 billion comes with responsibility. Oversight must be strict. Corruption must not be tolerated. But the foundation has been laid, and it is solid.
President Mutharika has done what many thought impossible — he has turned Malawi into a construction site in just six months. The skeptics are in awe, mouth agape, because facts are stubborn.
The Reformed CDF has proven one thing: Malawi’s problem was never lack of resources, but lack of leadership with the will to share them.
And now, that leadership is back. It is Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika
