Tracking LDF money

Getting to Chilunga Primary School in Nsanje by a vehicle is hard. The road to the school, situated 31 kilometres west of Bangula, is too rough. At times, it is so narrow that you would think it is a footpath.

When you get to a bridge, you cannot use it. You have to bypass the bridge for the wood used to construct it has seen better days. The bridge shows traits of poor construction.

Some children run from sparsely spaced mud and thatched houses and huts to see the vehicle. Others run away from it. At some point, you see a mother carrying a toddler in her hands. She points at the vehicle, seemingly telling the baby: “That, my little one, is a vehicle.”

So deep in the bush is the school that you would not be surprised it is in the fringes of Mwavi Game Reserve. The hard tsanya (mopane) trees, sparsed with grass, give you that idyllic feel of a wild safari.

In 2011, when locals, teachers and pupils learned that money from the district’s Local Development Fund (LDF) had been allocated to construct a head teacher’s house at the school, joy filled their hearts. Within three months, they knew, the house would be completed with a solar panel and a good toilet.

Today, that joy has died. The women sing and dance to a vernacular song against greedy people: kang’andire.

There is no solar panel on the head teacher’s house. The head teacher still uses a mud and thatch pit-latrine.

Village Head Miliyoni II is a worried man. So are his subjects in this Traditional Authority (T/A) Tengani’s area.

“We were told that everything would be completed in three months, like any other LDF project. Some windowpanes for the house were not bought. There is no solar panel and the pit-latrine is in very bad shape. We don’t know where the money went,” he says.

A member of the school management committee, Faleta Alano, suspects foul play on the part of Nsanje District Council Staff.

“When we bought a solar panel and accessories from a shop in Blantyre as recommended by district council staff, we were told to go and return it. We were not given back the money,” says Alano.

According to Gizex Gizai, executive director for the Foundation for Active Civic Education (Face) one of the organisations working with the Kalondolondo Programme in tracking down how LDF money was used in Nsanje, there were a number of anomalies in the use of funds at Chilunga.

For instance, he said, villagers said instead of the school management committee being trained for five days in how to use the funds, they were only trained for one day. On the other hand, instead of the committee being empowered to award the building contract to a local contractor, council officials imposed a contractor on them.

Dande Primary School is seven kilometres from the Chikwawa-Nsanje Road. Here, parents, teachers, traditional leaders and pupils said the building of the head teacher’s house at the school delayed because the district council did not release funds in time. They were also told that there was no money to erect a solar panel.

Engaging several civic organisations, the Kalondolondo Programme is scrutinising how LDF projects were handled in the district’s 25 primary schools.

Gizai says this will help combat fraud: “Before the programme, there was an information gap. Although people did their part in moulding bricks and collecting sand, they did not know that they had to be trained for five days, have solar power at the constructed house and a modern toilet. Right now, they are aware, for the sake of transparency and accountability.”

Concurring with Gizai, Alick Makiyi, executive director for the Grassroots Movement for Health and Development, said they found that authorities at some schools trained committees just for an hour, forced them to buy goods without proper quotations and awarded building contracts to artisans from afar.

But what does the future hold? Kalondolondo Programme director Jephther Mwanza said a meeting between representatives from the 25 schools, Nsanje District Council and the Ministry of Education will be held soon.

“The communities will present their grievances and the council will explain their part. This is necessary for development,” Mwanza says.