APM, Chakwera rebuff CSOs on K4bn issue

President Peter Mutharika and leader of opposition in Parliament Lazarus Chakwera have defied a seven-day ultimatum some civil society organisations (CSOs) gave them over the controversial K4 billion allocation to legislators.

While Mutharika was told to fire Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and DevelopmentGoodall Gondwe and Local Government Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa over their roles on the matter, Chakwera was asked to apologise for being ‘hypocritical’ on the issue.

Before the expiry of the ultimatum last Saturday, Gondwe met the CSO leaders—Gift Trapence, Timothy Mtambo, Charles Kajoloweka and Happy Mhango—at his Capital Hill office where they reiterated their position on his resignation. Gondwe refused to step down.

In an interview yesterday, Mtambo, who is executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), said the CSOs were disappointed with the lack of action from the two leaders—Mutharika and Chakwera. He said they will soon meet to strategise on the next course of action.

The CSOs had earlier threatened to mobilise people for mass demonstrations, but also take the matter to court.

Said Mtambo: “This is a new version of Cashgate and we are not going to allow laws to be used to advance sinister means because they have been arguing that they followed all the rules.

“They [political leaders] should know that we are not going to be cheated that they followed the rules and Parliament approved. They should know that Parliament approved an evil thing, so we will not relent, we want it withdrawn.”

Mtambo said the CSOs were also disappointed with Chakwera’s failure to apologise.

In Parliament, all legislators agreed to share the money, but later, the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) led by Chakwera made a U-turn, saying it does not want to be party to the money, as the arrangement was embroiled in “dishonesty and thievery”.

Mtambo said Chakwera should have gone further even to demand that Parliament reconvenes just to suspend the allocation.

He said: “We wanted to see their remorse, but the fact that they have refused to apologise, it means they are not different from those ruling us now. No matter what bad things they do, they do not want to acknowledge. They don’t want to resign. So, as citizens, we see similar traits. We want MCP and Chakwera to prove us wrong.”

Earlier, presidential press secretary Mgeme Kalilani said the two Cabinet ministers—Gondwe and Nankhumwa—did not do anything warranting to be fired as all procedures on the matter were duly followed.

Yesterday, Chakwera did not pick up his phone when called, but in an earlier interview, MCP deputy secretary general Eisenhower Mkaka said: “When the leader of opposition got a tip about this issue, he spoke against it in Parliament, he denounced this abuse of public resources. He did his part in Parliament and MCP has not changed its stand on the matter.

“Therefore, I don’t see how he should be called upon to apologise because in Parliament he spoke against it.”

The K4 billion issue—that initially saw 86 legislators mostly affiliated to the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its working partners getting about K40 million each—came to the fore during the Mid-Year Budget Review Meeting of Parliament in February.

But Nankhumwa clarified that both sides of the House decided to distribute the money equally across the board, meaning that each of the 193 legislators would now receive K20.7 million.

Capital Hill has argued that the money, described as Quick Grant Project, is meant for rural development, but the CSOs feel Gondwe’s conduct on the matter is not only beneath his resume, but a huge betrayal to citizens’ trust in him as the country’s purse keeper.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, under Vote 120, had an approved K11.4 billion in the approved recurrent budget for which Gondwe sought an increment of K2.2 billion.

However, the K4 billion is not part of the increment.  n