NAC rejects Beam refund, asks ‘well-wishers’ to go through Treasury

Drama continued to unfold yesterday in the National Aids Commission (NAC) grant to First Lady Gertrude Mutharika’s Beautify Malawi (Beam) Trust when NAC rejected a “refund” of K5 million donated by businesspersons purportedly on behalf of Beam.

NAC board chairperson Kumbweza Banda said there is a process it follows when it wants money returned or refunded.

On Tuesday, a group of businesspersons in Lilongwe led by one Bannet Chinsinga “returned” the money behalf of Beam because they are the ones who suffer when people riot over what they called petty issues.

Beam has come under fire from civil society organisations (CSOs) following revelations by our sister newspaper, Weekend Nation, that it received a K5 million from NAC despite being a charity that primarily deals with environmental matters, not HIV and Aids affairs.

NAC also granted similar funding to the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and Mulhako wa Alhomwe, a cultural grouping which counts President Peter Mutharika among its members, according to the newspaper report.

CSOs have been demanding that Beam refunds the money or they will hold nationwide demonstrations on January 12 2015 to push for the same.

Briefing journalists in Lilongwe on Tuesday during a news conference called by the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), Chinsinga said his group felt it necessary to avert the planned demonstrations by CSOs by mobilizing funds to refund NAC on behalf of Beam.

He said: “If these demonstrations do go ahead, people should realise that businesses do fall apart and it is this [aspect] which we do not want to see because so much money is lost.”

However, HRCC chairperson Robert Mkwezalamba said when his group went to return the K5 million, Kumbweza Banda told them to go through Treasury.

He said: “The money is now in our possession. We are going to write to NAC and also to Treasury about this money. We hope the matter can be put to rest once the money is safely in NAC’s custody.”

But Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) executive director Timothy Mtambo, one of the CSOs pushing Beam to refund the money, trashed the whole process saying it is suspicious.

“Our position remains clear. If they [Beam] do not return the money and also give us their position, our nationwide demonstrations stand. That money needs to be returned and, as CSOs, we are serious about this,” he said.

In his reaction on Tuesday, Beam Trust deputy board chairperson Collins Magalasi distanced Beam from the group that mobilized the K5 million.

He said Beam’s position remains that the money can never be returned.

Said Magalasi: “Bravo that some people thought they could return the money. But we know nothing about them [the group]. Beam can never return the money because it was not given out as cash.”

Critics of the planned demonstrations have accused the protest leaders of political motivation and pointed at failure for similar outrage during Cashgate where about K23 billion was stolen under the Joyce Banda administration, according to an audit report by British firm Baker Tilly.

Recently, Council for Non-Governnmental Organisations in Malawi (Congoma) vice-chairperson Maxwell Matewere and Malawi Interfaith Aids Association (MIAA) executive director Robert Ngaiyaye defended NAC on the matter, but the CSOs say their NGO fraternity colleagues are blinded by cheap partisan interests.