Roads Fund commits to pay contractors K14bn

R

oads Fund Administration (RFA) has committed to pay the K14 billion it owes contractors under the Malawi Building and Civil Engineering Contractors Allied Building Contractors (Mabcata), a move that has seen group call off planned vigils.

In an interview yesterday, one of the contractors Stanley Gwaza said the group planned to start holding the vigils yesterday to force RFA to pay for work measured.

He said the contractors had submitted certificates for works, but RFA has not been paying them since January in violation of the stipulated 45-day period for payments.

Said Gwaza: “Now the RFA has made a commitment to pay the money and it has already started paying. It is our hope as contractors that all the money will be paid in the shortest time possible.”

He said a number of projects have stalled due to the payment delays.

“We stopped the work in March because there was no money coming in. We will have to sit down as contractors and see how we move forward,” said Gwaza.

However, he said they still need an assurance from the RFA that money will be flowing once contractors issue certificates.

Another contractor Paeki Nkhwazi said the contractors have decided to give the RFA space to clear the debt.

“They have 10 days from today to clear all the money. There are so many contractors involved,” he said.

RFA spokesperson Masauko Mngwaluko asked for more time to respond to The Nation questions.

However, the RFA earlier indicated that it was struggling to pay contractors because Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) was not remitting road levy collected from fuel pump prices, a source of 90 percent of RFA’s income.

Mera chief executive officer Henry Kachaje in an interview yesterday said the regulator is mobilising resources and will start remitting the levies to RFA within this month.

However, he could not indicate how much Mera owes the RFA in levies, saying he was travelling and could not tell the amount off his head.

But in January this year, Mngwaluko told The Nation that Mera was yet to remit K80 billion to RFA as of October 2023.

On May 21 2024, the concerned indigenous contractors petitioned RFA to express concern over the delays to pay them.