Ministries asked to pay for celebrations

Government ministries, departments and parastatals, recently   paid  for commemoration of the Africa Day for the Public Service at Civo Stadium in Lilongwe despite financial troubles some of the parastatals such as Admarc are going through.

Last month’s two-day commemorations drew participants from some government ministries, departments and parastatals.

 Nation on Sunday has learnt that government institutions were asked to pay for pavilions to showcase their work, buy cloth that they never got during the event and paid for golf shirts.

Institutions spent further on subsistence allowances and travel expenses from areas such as Blantyre and Zomba for their staff to attend the event.

Vice-President Khumbo Kachali attended the commemorations.

In an interview on Tuesday, principal secretary for Public Sector Reform LuckieSikwese, who   was in the commemorations’ organising committee said they spent about K632 000 on each pavilion (comprising about five to 10 slots).

Sikwese said the institutions were asked to either pay for the entire pavilion or share the cost.

Said Sikwese: “Mounting of the pavilions was organised by the Department of Buildings for easy coordination, instead of individual parastatals.”

“Top officials from some ministries confided in Nation on Sunday this week that they could have saved resources if they had mounted the pavilions on their own.

However, Sikwese could not give the cost of the commemoration’s cloth, saying he needed time to check the figures.

He demanded a questionnaire to give specific figures on the entire budget for the commemorations, which was yet to respond to as we went to press.n