Sadc Summit funds chaos

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Corporation is failing to pay companies that supplied goods and services during the 41st Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Summit.

The ministry’s spokesperson Rejoice Shumba did not respond to our questionnaire sent to her on Tuesday despite several reminders while Principal Secretary Bernard Sande asked for more time to find out, pledging to revert but he had not done so by press time.

This is despite a declaration that the Treasury released the funds as allocated in the national budget for the event held in Lilongwe where some heads of State and other delegates from bloc’s 16 member countries gathered between August 9 and19 last year.

Government approved K1.2 billion for operations and K2 billion for procurement of 20 state-of-the-art vehicles for Very Very Important Persons and Very Important Persons.

In a brief response to our questionnaire, Ministry of Finance spokesperson Williams Banda confirmed that they released the funding for the assembly where President Lazarus Chakwera took over the rotational Sadc chairpersonship.

He wrote back on Thursday: “Treasury funded the whole budget as appropriated.”

Some of the service providers that have not been paid are Mame Car Hire and Budget Car Hire who confirmed the non-payment in separate interviews.

Said Budget Car Hire managing director Patrick Nyirongo: “I can confirm that we haven’t been paid yet. That’s all I can say.”

On her part, Mame Car Hire managing director Mirriam Takwalakwa said when they were engaged through the Ministry of Transport, which managed the transportation segment during the summit, they were assured that payment would be made as soon as the summit ended.

She said: “When we invoiced the government, the response we got from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was that the funding had been depleted through payment of other services. This shocked us.

“We are wondering, if they didn’t have enough money, why not pay all the service providers 50 percent and honour the remainder later so that we could all get something as we wait?”

Takwalakwa said for the past five months they have been pushing for the payment but to no avail.

She said: “All the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says is that they have applied for additional funds and we have to wait. We have been to the Ministry of Transport and the office of the budget director but nothing has come to fruition.

“The challenge we have is that when we were given the contract, we got additional vehicles from other car renting institutions and they are on our neck seeking payment.”

Nation on Sunday has established that the bill for the government of the car hired for the summit hovers around K100 million.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rejoice Shumba did not respond to our questionnaire while Principal Secretary Bernard Sande asked for time to find out, promising to revert but he did not pick our follow-up calls.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has said government’s hide and seek game over Sadc Summit funding raises suspicions.

HRDC chairperson Gift Trapence said on Saturday: “Malawians have been demanding Sadc meeting expenditure reports. HRDC is not surprised that up to now government has not furnished the financial expenditure report of the funds.

“We are surprised that some suppliers after so many months have not been paid and yet we were told that government funded the Sadc meeting.

“HRDC demands that the government should share with Malawians the expenditure report. We are also demanding an audit of the Sadc meeting funding.”