CRISIS AT MEC: TOO BROKE TO PAY MAY 20 SUPPLIERS

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is in fresh turmoil: apart from failing to pay temporary staff, it is unable to pay some suppliers of tripartite electoral goods and services.

It is all Treasury’s fault, according to chief elections officer Willie Kalonga, who claimed on Saturday that the purse keeper is clinging to the commission’s K890 million.

Not so, counter-charges Treasury spokesperson Nations Msowoya, who stated on Friday that government gave MEC all the money budgeted for the May 2014 polls.

But Kalonga on Saturday explained that there is still an outstanding K360 million out of the K18 billion elections budget that Treasury never released and K200 million initially planned for MEC commissioners’ vehicles that government directed to be spent on the polls on the understanding that the Ministry of Finance would refund it.

He also said government is supposed to pay MEC a K300 million bill incurred to reprint a new voters’ roll and ballot papers following the May 20 fracas and logistical mess.

Furthermore, said Kalonga, Treasury owes MEC K30 million for hiring vehicles for the elections after government authorised the expenditure to fill a vehicle shortage.

He said if these resources can be released, figures will show that the tripartite poll budget only overshot by K80 million “due to high cost of fuel and other factors”.

“It is not only the temporary staff that we have not paid. We have not paid transporters; we have not paid the media. We will need the same service providers for by-elections, so it is important that we pay them,” he said.

Kalonga said at a meeting that took place on Thursday in Lilongwe, government assured MEC that it would release the money to the commission.

On outstanding payments that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was to pay temporary staff that worked on election days, Kalonga said the delay was due to some people giving MEC wrong bank details that made it difficult for UNDP to transfer the money to beneficiaries.

Kalonga also alleged that some workers tried to defraud MEC by bringing up lists of names of people who did not even work during the elections.

“We noticed that names of some people that did not work for MEC were appearing for payment. Some head teachers were putting names of their relatives to be paid by MEC when they did not work for MEC,” he said.

MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said out of the 90 000 workers UNDP was expected to pay, about 85 000 who provided correct details received their dues.

The poll body hired the workers to support management of the May 2014 Tripartite Elections that were also infested by a mass of irregularities such as a botched voters’ roll, a crash of the computerised votes counting system and embarrassing mathematical errors on the number of votes cast.

But in a July 23 2014 statement, MEC appeared to blame Treasury for the salary payment delays.

Said Kalonga in the statement: “The Malawi Electoral Commission wishes to inform all temporary staff that payment for their June salaries will further delay because Treasury has not released funding meant for their salaries.”

In the statement, Kalonga explained that the commission processed in early June, 2014 the vouchers for payment of salaries for all temporary staff, which include district elections coordinators, constituency returning officers, drivers, data entry clerks, stringers, constituency civic and voter education assistants and warehouse clerks, “but funding has not been honoured up to this date”.

He said at the moment, the commission has only managed to pay the temporary staff in question their dues for July 2014 up to their last day of engagement, which was July 11 2014.

“The commission urges all the staff to take note of this scenario and appeal for their patience as Treasury and the Accountant General are processing the funding,” said Kalonga in the statement.

He, however, explained that the said delay did not affect those who worked on the polling day because their honorarium is being paid from the donor basket funding managed by UNDP.

But Treasury spokesperson Nations Msowoya said the Ministry of Finance was not aware of any payment that was supposed to be issued to MEC other than the K500 million that was requested for by-elections.

Msowoya said payment of allowances for the polling staff was being processed by MEC and UNDP.

“Allowances for the election will be paid by UNDP. As for the budget for the by- elections we are waiting for the cash-flow, which is linked to the calendar of events so that we can release the funding,” he said.

On July 11, over 300 teachers staged a protest against MEC for the delayed honoraria, but police foiled the demonstrations with tear gas.