The brouhaha surrounding the K9 million and K5 million Mulhako wa Alhomwe and Beautify Malawi Trust respectively got from the National Aids Commission is not helping the Mutharika administration.

 

 

Look, the more the two organisations try to justify things the more they make the whole thing look ugly. Take Edward Sawerengera, for example. Dry-eyed our envoy-designate to Brazil had the audacity of telling Brian Banda on Times Television that the money MWA irregularly got from Nac was used to ferry around and feed chiefs. How does driving around chiefs and making them full and drunk begin to fight Aids?

 

And my friends Collins Magalasi and Mabvuto Bamusi are not helping issues either. They claim Beam never got money from Nac but Nac bought tables and paid for some adverts.

 

C’mon, good people, does that mean no money left Nac? The letter Beam wrote Nac clearly asks the Aids-fighting body to assist at the launch of the trust, nothing about adverts or buying tables for staff. In fact, if probed further, it may as well come out that Nac paid more than the K5 million for the adverts and tables could be extra costs.

 

In trying to justify the grants to MWA and Beam information is being subtly leaked of other organisations that also benefited from Nac before. Those organisations might have been linked to the powers that were and might have been favoured because of those connections. But at least they had HIV/Aids programmes which Beam and MWA did not even pretend to have. 

Besides, even if those earlier organisations got the funding irregularly, does it justify the country continuing abusing resources with such impunity? 

Beam and MWA must do the needful and return the money to Nac. President Mutharika is trying his best to spruce up the financial management image of his government. He does not need his wife’s trust and his tribal group to muddy up the waters.