Malawi’s graft busting body, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is reviewing allegations of reports about allowances involving Deputy Clerk of Parliament responsible for corporate services Renard Mapemba, The Nation has learnt.
ACB senior public relations officer Egrita Ndala said in a written response last Wednesday that apart from The Nation’s expose of the matter two weeks ago, the anti-graft body also received a complaint in relation to Mapemba’s allowances he has been drawing to support his PhD studies in Scotland.
“The complaint is being processed to see what action should be taken by the bureau,” said Ndala.
Meanwhile, Mapemba has started paying back some of the money to the National Assembly through monthly deductions, his lawyers said in a letter to The Nation last week, but could not shed more light on what has transpired so far.
But our parliamentary sources confided that the recovery of the money from Mapemba’s salary has only started this May and comes after we had published the article in April. Mapemba was scheduled to travel in March after pocketing the money in February.
It is not clear whether the repayment is just on the allowances for his March failed trip for a second stint at the University of Glasgow or it includes the questionable allowances he drew on two occasions—in September 2012 and in March this year—for his educational trip.
Key officials at Parliament including Speaker Henry Chimunthu Banda and spokesperson Leonard Mengezi refused to comment on the matter this week.
In separate interviews, the officials said since Mapemba has taken the matter to his lawyers, it would not be appropriate for them to give out any information or comment on the propriety or lack thereof of the allowances issue.
Allowances
Payment vouchers show that Mapemba—who has since September 2012 been pursuing a Malawi Parliament funded five-year part-time PhD programme at University of Glasgow—has pocketed nearly K10 million (about $25 000) in allowances on two occasions in the past six months.
On the second occasion, we established that even after receiving K5 388 093.90 (about $13 470) in allowances, Mapemba did not travel to Scotland as scheduled to present his six-month research work. He was supposed to be at his university from March 25 to April 19 2013.
At the time of publishing the article in April, we talked to Mapemba and he confirmed that he had not travelled.
Based on Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) documents and a circular issued by the Department of Human Resource Management and Development (DHRMD) detailing allowance guidelines, it appears that Mapemba got the bulk of the alleged illegal allowances by claiming external travel allowances instead of training entitlements.
He also got stipends such as for telephones that do not fall under training, according to the PSC documents.
Our sources confirmed at the time that Mapemba was not supposed to receive telephone allowances because, according to his own memo he issued as head of corporate services on June 20 2012, such an allowance applies to members of Parliament and only to staff who are accompanying legislators.
When we contacted him for the first story in April, Mapemba declined to comment when asked why he was collecting wrong allowances and also why he never travelled after pocketing allowances in February. He referred us back to Mengezi.
During his first visit to the university between September 13 2012 to October 14, at least K4 334 756.31 (about $10 836) was deposited into Mapemba’s bank account held at Standard Bank Capital City Branch.
Internal memos
An internal memorandum dated August 15 2012 signed by Harvey Chigumula of the Travel Desk explained that the money was meant for external travel allowances, telephone allowances, settling allowance, warm clothing allowance and book allowance.
Then in February this year, K5 388 093.90 was also deposited into Mapemba’s account being payment for external travel allowance for 30 days at $420 per day and telephone allowance for the same period at $70 per day.
The allowances that Mapemba collected for his PhD trip is way outside the rates of allowances for long-term training that DHRMD rolled out for public servants from January 1 2010.
According to DHRMD, those pursuing long term courses under Malawi Government Scholarship Fund (MGSF) outside Africa are entitled to £700 monthly stipend, one off allowances for settling (£270), warm clothing (£270), a book allowance of £270 paid once in an academic year, dissertation allowance of £350 paid once in the final year as well as extra baggage and departure allowance of £500 on their return for students who have stayed in universities for more than two years and £375 for those whose programmes are for two years.
These allowances exclude tuition and the cost of a return air ticket that is bought on a one-way basis.
Had Mapemba been a full-time student in Scotland, government would only have spent about K3.5 million on him so far in upkeep allowances comprising £700 monthly stipend for seven months since last September (£4 900 for seven months) and the £810 in settling, warm clothing and book allowances. He should never have collected external travel allowances, according to the guidelines.
Whereas the DHRMD circular has provided allowances for in-country part-time courses, a similar arrangement is missing on the schedule of external part-time courses.
The nearly K10 million that has gone into Mapemba’s bank account excludes the cost of air tickets and approximately $25 000 (about K40 million at the current exchange rate) tuition fee that the National Assembly has paid directly to the University of Glasgow.
Parliament training plan
The National Assembly training plan for the 2011/2012 financial year shows that the committee approved two trainings for Mapemba—a short-term programme on parliamentary administration at the Royal Institute for Public Administration in the United Kingdom.
He was also given a nod to pursue a long-term PhD in Business Management at any university in the Sadc region for a period of four years, according to the training plan.
We were unable to establish why and at what point the preference for a regional university was changed to a UK one. Chimunthu Banda and Mengezi again declined to comment on this administrative decision this week.
Last Thursday, when we contacted him to confirm reports that he had started repaying the money through monthly deductions, he also refused to answer anything. But a few hours later, Nation Publications Limited received a letter from his lawyers.
The letter said Mapemba had complied with the process of repaying the money. It also demanded an immediate apology from The Nation to Mapemba and threatened to sue “for any further publication of this false and groundless matter.”
Read the letter in part: “The documents in our possession show that our client instructed the finance department [of Parliament] to recover the allowances from his salary following his failure to travel.
“Be informed that in government or Parliament, it is a set procedure to recover any money paid to a civil servant, which has not been used for the purpose it was paid. Our client complied with this set procedure and, therefore, it is wrong for you to claim that our client was in allowance scam.”
Meanwhile, sources at Parliament said last week that the institution’s management has warned employees against releasing internal matters to the public through the media.
