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Board members and the Minister of Information are digging out K331,000 per month from the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) in fuel and telephone allowances, Nation Online has established.
The Ministry of Information has also borrowed an unspecified amount of money from the authority since May 2002 for allowances and air tickets for its staff as they go gallivanting in foreign capitals. Highly placed sources in Macra say the borrowed money is never paid back.
In September, Information Minister Bernard Chisale drew from Macra K40,000 fuel allowance and K135,000 telephone allowance (for October to December, 2003) through First Merchant Bank cheque number 923855.
In addition, Macra spends K45,000 per month telephone allowance for its board chair and K30,000 telephone allowance for each of its six board members.
The chair also gets an honoraria of K10,000 with the board members getting K1,000 less per three months. The board chair also gets K10,000 as sitting allowance while the members get K12,000 each.
Finance Minister Friday Jumbe said in an interview with Nation Online in April that a cabinet minister gets K300,000 per month which includes a monthly salary of K24,000 and allowances for housing, telephone, fuel, travel, water and electricity.
Jumbe said if a minister blows up the money within a week, he cannot go back to his or her ministry to claim more.
Chisale admitted in an interview last week that he draws allowances from Macra and Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL), saying he found “the privileges” when he was appointed Minister of Information. But he disputed getting the fuel and telephone allowances on a monthly basis.
Said Chisale: “When I am doing something for Macra or MTL, they give me allowances. Likewise, I was in the North recently when I was visiting Post Offices. I drew fuel from there.
“Currently, I get fuel from MTL which I never requested but I think that’s one of the privileges they give to the ministers. All the ministers that have been here were getting fuel from MTL.”
On telephone allowances, Chisale said those are some of the privileges he gets from institutions which fall under his ministry.
Asked why he has been given telephone allowances three months in advance, Chisale said Macra would be in a better position “to explain that because I never asked for that”.
Macra director general Evans Namanja and his deputy Shadreck Ulemu have been out of the country for three weeks now, but acting director general Mike Kuntiya declined to comment.
Deputy Secretary to the President and Cabinet Michael Kamphambe Nkhoma said in an interview last week the fuel which government provides for the ministers is supposed to cater for all their operations.
Asked if it was normal for a minister to be drawing fuel allowances from a parastatal that falls under his or her ministry, Kaphambe Nkhoma said he wouldn’t see any reason why a minister should do that when government already pays the ministers for fuel.
Kaphambe Nkhoma said he was not aware of any case where a minister draws fuel and telephone allowances from a parastatal falling under his or her ministry.
But when he was informed of Chisale’s case, Kamphambe Nkhoma said: “What I administer are conditions of service which have been approved and I cannot talk about what is not provided for in those conditions. It would be wrong for me.”
Auditor General Henry Kalongonda said on Friday that what he knows is that ministers draw their fuel and telephone allowances from their respective ministries.
“To draw the fuel and telephone allowances regularly [from parastatal] is not normal. There could be some exceptions but we have not investigated the Macra case,” said Kalongonda.
Comptroller of Statutory Corporations Arnold Juma said Friday government recommends to parastatal boards to be getting honoraria and sitting allowances only which are fixed by the boards and approved by government depending on whether a particular parastatal is government-subvented or a commercial parastatal.
Secretary for Information Anthony Livuza said the Communications Act provides that board members recommend remuneration, allowances and other benefits that would be seen to help the members execute their duties but said the benefits are approved by government.
“But every effort is made so that there shouldn’t be too much difference between one board and another,” said Livuza.
Macra Board Chair Abdul Pillane declined to comment on the allowances Chisale has claimed from Macra, saying he is a new man and does not know what is happening at Macra.
Former Minister of Information Donald Kaliyoma Phumisa, now Minister of Housing, said he was not getting anything from Macra when he was Information Minister.
“If I could get three months advance on telephone allowance, I would have been very happy,” said Phumisa.
On money his ministry owes Macra, Chisale said it was not his job to follow up on such issues and referred the Nation Online to his officials. Both Director of Information Robert Ngaiyaye and Deputy Secretary for Information George Mwale admitted they have not paid back the money owed to Macra.
“The ministry will pay back if the letter says that we will pay back,” said Ngaiyaye.
For two such trips made between June 2002, and last month, for which Macra paid the ministry K342,692, Nation Online has established that the ministry has not paid back a tambala.
A letter dated June 3, 2003 to the Director General of Macra from the then Acting Principal Secretary for Information George Mwale asks for a loan of K222,692 from Macra to enable Ngaiyaye to attend a Unesco meeting in Paris, France.
The ministry also asked for K120,000 for the presidential memoirs project from Macra, according to a letter dated May 20, 2003.
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