Did taxpayers cough over K25 million in salaries and millions more in gratuity on former first lady Callista Mutharika to run her foundation instead of the Safe Motherhood and Early Childhood Development initiative she was being paid for?
It would appear so if our findings and what her successor at the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC)-based Safe Motherhood and Early Childhood Development secretariat Dorothy Ngoma has said is anything to go by.
According to Ngoma, she found no record of the government initiative’s activities when she took over last year from Callista, who was national coordinator from May 1 2010 to about April 2012.
Ngoma, who succeed Callista at the secretariat that is now called the Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood, also argued in a questionnaire response that no handovers were made by the former First Lady regarding any finances or programmes.
Ngoma said when she assumed the office in 2012, she had to write OPC to request for funds to buy new equipment for the office.
Reads part of Ngoma’s response: “We had no chairs, no money and even no documentation. I had to start from scratch.”
Yet, Nation on Sunday has established that the Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood Foundation—where the former first lady apparently expended most of her fundraising energies at the expense of Safe M
otherhood and Early Childhood Development initiative that paid her salary—was flush with cash donations that government had no control over and for which Callista was the only signatory to its bank accounts.
Callista—who operated two separate dollar and kwacha accounts at FMB Capital City Branch—was the accounts’ “sole proprietor”, according to bank statements we have seen.
The general description of both accounts is:
Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood
State House
P.O Box 807
Lilongwe
Current Account Sole Proprietorship
These accounts received donations from various institutions, including foreigners.
According to a ban
k statement for the dollar account we have seen covering the period January 2009 and April 12 2012 named Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood 2, the former first lady’s foundation had 11 credits (deposits or transfers into the account) totalling $355 343.81 (nearly K120.5 million at the present exchange rates).
On the other hand, by April 2012, this dollar account had 12 debits (money out) totalling $350 670.33 (about K119 million) at present exchange rates, leaving a balance of $4 673 (roughly K1.6 million) at current exchange rates).
The account shows a lot of movements in cash, including foreign currency from external donors into the foundation’s dollar account. There are also movements from the dollar account into the kwacha account.
During the same two-year period, the kwacha account had 56 credits totalling K40 864 267.43—including $30 000 [K10.2 million]—transferred from the dollar account. The kwacha account’s debits a
mounted to K36 617 177.82.
The former first lady had more activities—at least those recorded in public—for the foundation where several donors pumped in money than for the government initiative that paid her salary.
At one event on July 18 2010, the foundation raised K20 million, with former president, the late Bingu wa Mutharika donating K7 million, Mulli Brothers K3.5 million, Zain Malawi (now Airtel) K2 m
illion and several other cash donations from Mota-Engil and Countrywide Car Hire.
Oil explorer Surestream at some point donated nearly $60 000 (about K20.4 million) to the foundation directly into the dollar account, according to the bank accounts we have seen.
Several other donations followed and Callista, in return, also made some material and cash donations to institutions such as hospitals, churches and other groups.
Health rights activist Martha Kwataine, who is Malawi Health Equity Network (Mhen) executive director, accused Callista of using her taxpayer-funded position to raise money for her foundation that
should otherwise have gone to government.
She charged that the launch of the foundation in July 2010 was questionable and could have been a ploy to divert money meant for the public to one person’s control.
Said Kwataine: “We raised these concerns then as civil society that she was not supposed to be formally employed and put on a salary, but they never listened. Now see what has happened; money meant for [government] was being channelled into her foundation and that is clear abuse.”
She noted that under Ngoma, the presidential initiative has raised a lot of money that is being controlled by government systems.
In the e-mail interview, Ngoma confirmed that so far, several companies have made donations to the current presidential initiative over the past year estimated at more than K200 million (US$615, 384).
Some of the donations are K19 million (US$58,461) from Standard Bank towards construction of a waiting home in Mulanje, K18. 5 million (US$55,385) from UNFPA; K22 million (US$67,692) from Farmers World towards construction of a waiting home in Chilumba, Karonga; K35 million (US$107, 692) from Mota-Engil for Lumbadzi and Mkanda homes and K14 million from Airtel Malawi for 20 community midwives scholarships currently at St Johns’ College of Nursing.
Other donors are Ecobank (K30 million) (US$43,076) for Mangochi Lugola waiting home in T/A Makanjira’s area in Mangochi District; Huawei (K22 million); Tashar Presidents’ friend committed K30 million.
Kwataine has since asked law enforcement agencies to investigate Callista’s handling of the foundation’s money given that it was obtained in the name of Malawians and that the resources should have been going directly to government which was paying her salary to coordinate its safe motherhood activities not the foundation’s.
As a national coordinator, Callista was on government payroll, carting home K1 138 000 (US$a month (over K25 million in the two years at the helm[US$76,923])—more than Cabinet ministers at the time who were being paid K800 000 (US$2,461) as gross salary.
Callista’s appointment by her husband, Mutharika, came after he relieved the then vice-president Joyce Banda of her safe motherhood ambassadorial role, for which the now State President worked as a volunteer.
The civil society and opposition political parties then roundly condemned the appointment of Callista and the government move to put her on a salary.
In the Friday interview, Kwataine said: “This is a matter [concerning Callista’s foundation] that the Anti-Corruption Bureau [ACB] and Fiscal Police must take up to make her account for that money, and when that happens, I hope they will not start claiming that it’s persecution.”
Nation on Sunday tried several times to contact the former first lady for her side of the story, but her mobile phone was on voicemail on Wednesday; she could not pick up the phone on Thursday and was not available on Friday when we wanted to find out how she managed the funds and if she could account for them, among other issues.
Treasury spokesperson Nations Msowoya declined to comment on the money, if any, that may have been donated to the Safe Motherhood Initiative for which Callista was being paid.
He, however, said Treasury was currently running bank accounts for the Presidential Initiative for Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood under Ngoma’s leadership.
Msowoya also confirmed that the former first lady was paid her gratuity early this year for her government job. She was on a three-year contract from May 1 2010.
He also said Treasury did not manage the bank accounts for Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood Foundation, which she launched on July 17 2010.
“My understanding of the Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood Foundation is that it was a private initiative; as such, we did not operate any account belonging to the foundation. The foundation had its own personnel.”
Justice Link executive director Justin Dzonzi said foundations linked to the presidency are prone to abuse and a trump card for political gain.
