Nankhumwa must repay allowances—PAC
Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has ordered the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 to reclaim allowances and payments that were paid unprocedurally to its members.
The committee made the order Thursday evening in Lilongwe when it grilled officials from the task force on how they managed K6.2 billion funds.
The committee chairperson Shadric Namalomba, who is also legislator for Mangochi South West Constituency, ordered the repayment after committee members quizzed the task force to explain why they paid Leader of Opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa over K3.5 million in allowances for fuel, accommodation and vehicle maintenance.
“The Leader of Opposition must pay back the money because his name was reflected [in the audit report]. He must pay back the allowances because such allowances are abuse,” he said.
Namalomba said the money was paid on assumption that he lives outside the Lilongwe—where most of the meetings took place—when he lives within the city and the vehicle he uses in his capacity as Leader of Opposition is serviced by government.
“The repayment should be done within seven days and the task force must report back to the committee. Repayments must also include allowances by other members of the task force who received what they did not deserve plus payments for various procurements that were done outside the law,” said the PAC chair.
Nankhumwa could not be reached for comment.
But co-chairperson of the task force Dr. Wilfred Chalamira Nkhoma said they will review the payments and allowances and ask those implicated to pay back as ordered by the committee.
He said: “There are records for all payments and we will assess whether any payments were made inappropriately.”
Earlier, Nkhoma told the committee, in response to questions from the lawmakers, that only Nankhumwa and Inkosi M’mbelwa V were members of the task force who were receiving allowances.
However, he defended the task force’s handling of the pandemic resources, saying budgets and activity plans were approved at various levels.
Nkhoma conceeded, though, that more could have been done to prevent the wastage of resources.
He pointed out that the ongoing criminal investigations into the abuse of K6.2 billion Covid-19 funds, which has led to the arrest of over 60 people in the past month, is in part due to the task force’s efforts to ensure accountability of the funds.
