Malawi Paralympic Committee misses K300m jackpot
Suspension of the Malawi Paralympic Committee (MPC) has denied the country’s physically challenged athletes access to 630 000 euros (K315 million) funding from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
IPC has announced on its website that MPC and other suspended national paralympic committees (NPCs) of Somalia, Niger, Mauritania and the Central African Republic will not be among 30 sports development projects to access the money estimated at over K20 million for each country.
“The money, which has been made available through the first `Grant Support Programme’ will go to 33 NPCs, International Federations (IFs) and International Organisations of Sports for the Disabled (IOSDs) to develop both summer and winter para-sports worldwide,” reads www.paralympic.org
IPC, which is providing the grants through its development arm called the Agitos Foundation, suspended MPC last year for failing to refund a grant of 4 895 pound sterling (K2.9 million at current exchange rate) it received for participation at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.
In southern Africa, only Malawi will miss out on the funding which will, for example, see Zimbabwe being supported for its talent identification programme and Namibia benefiting for its regional clubs development, leadership and management training and career development for the athletes.
Malawi National Council of Sports executive secretary George Jana, whose body has been trying to reimburse the money to IPC, on Tuesday said MPC was failing to comply in furnishing the council with supporting documents on how the 4 895 pound sterling was spent.
“We also have had a meeting with MPC for them to recount to us how they used the money, which so far they have not been able to give us all the documentation. Once the payment is made we will review the matter dependent on whether the IPC will have taken the MPC back into their fold or not,” Jana said in an e-mail response.
MPC general secretary George Luhanga, whose committee claims a big chunk of the money was used for preparing for the London trip, which the council eventually recommended again, yesterday said he expected the matter to be sorted out this week.
Asked through an e-mail questionnaire about the future of MPC affiliation, IPC membership relations manager Claire Magras simply said “As you can see from Malawi’s page on our website, the NPC remains suspended to this day.”
The Grant Support Programme was launched this year through a partnership between the IPC and International Olympic Committee (IOC). Agito director Georg Sclachtenberger said over 388 000 euros have already been allocated to NPCs based on their applications for funding.
