Govt plays hide and seek on K18bn

Who is fooling who? Three government agencies have given conflicting positions on a Water Employees Trade Union of Malawi (Wetum) ultimatum to disconnect ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) collectively owing water boards K18.8 billion in unpaid bills.

While comptroller of Statutory Corporations Stuart Ligomeka said in an interview yesterday his office wrote the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) to act on a 21-day Wetum ultimatum for MDAs to pay the bill or face disconnection, the OPC has denied knowledge of the bill.

Ligomeka said OPC responded by directing Treasury to reconcile the figures before meeting Wetum on December 6.

But Secretary to the Treasury Ben Botolo yesterday distanced Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development from the said arrangement.

He said: “We are not reconciling anything ourselves. What we do is we fund the institutions, whether its police, army, immigration or prison. We fund them and then they go and pay the water or electricity bills. That’s it!

“It is not in our mandate to reconcile anything. If they [MDAs] have used water, they have to simply go and pay the bills. That’s the end of the story!”

OPC Principal Secretary (Administration) Cliff Chiunda also claimed ignorance on Ligomeka’s assertion on both the directive and the meeting.

Ligomeka had earlier said his department was taking the Wetum threat seriously and taken steps to resolve the outstanding bills choking the country’s five water boards.

He said: “They [Wetum] wrote us and we communicated with OPC. In a memorandum, OPC has communicated with Treasury and action is being taken. There will be a meeting on December 6 2018 to the same effect.

“But I know that Treasury is taking action in terms of trying to collect all the data for government institutions owing the water boards. What government is trying to do is reconciliation.”

When we reverted to Ligomeka and told him that both Treasury and OPC have denied acting on a Wetum query, the comptroller, sounding confused, referred the matter to Chief Secretary to the Government Lloyd Muhara who did not pick up our calls, but responded through a text message that he would get back later. By press time, Muhara had not responded.

But Ligomeka insisted: “These arrears date back from long time ago, and those invited to the meeting will discuss how to pay them. The problem is with the MDAs that haven’t settled their bills, mostly the army, police and hospitals.”

A Ministry of Finance source blamed the confusion over the outstanding bill on tit-for-tat scenarios that have ensued among MDAs, Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) and water boards.

Said the source: “It is a vicious cycle. The water boards owe taxes to MRA and they say they are not remitting because MDAs are not paying water bills. So, you have three players—government, water boards and MRA.

“The water boards are failing to pay taxes because their funds are tied with MDAs and central government is telling MRA that it wants its money.”

In an interview yesterday, Wetum secretary general Tony Chiphwanya said the union has not received a concrete response from government to their October 23 2018 letter that gave MDAs 21 days to settle the bill.

He said Wetum members met in Lilongwe on Saturday and agreed on a roadmap on how to start the disconnections.

Said Chiphwanya: “We have tried to engage government, but nothing has materialised so far. So, we agreed to start disconnecting water in December, but before we do that, we want to inform the chief executive officers of water boards on our plan of action.

“Our aim is to help improve efficiency of water boards. We feel sorry when we go to disconnect water from private companies and individuals who owe the boards very little, yet government is failing to pay billions of kwacha.”

In its letter, Wetum said MDAs owed water boards K20 519 358 237.90, but paid K1 692 211 476, remaining with a K18 827 146 761.90 debt.

A breakdown of the bills outlined in the letter shows that MDAs owe Northern Region Water Board (NRWB) about K2.3 billion, Central Region Water Board (CRWB) about K2.6 billion, Blantyre Water Board (BWB) K3 billion, Southern Region Water Board (SRWB) K5.2 billion and Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) K5.4 billion.

Chiphwanya said the meeting with water board chief executive officers (CEOs) has been deferred from today because the CEOs’ chairperson, Gift Sageme, who heads CRWB, is abroad.

Wetum advocates settlement of the bills arguing it will complement efforts of all employees as they deliver the four key management indicators of non-revenue water deduction, improved cash collection, growth and profitability in line with government expectations.

Speaking after meeting with NRWB in Mzuzu on August 21 2018, Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Joseph Mwanamvekha, whose office was copied the Wetum letter, admitted the challenges and that government needed to settle the bills.

But he argued the water boards owe government a similar amount in unpaid taxes.

As part of the solution, the minister suggested that water boards with pre-paid billing should install them in all MDAs.