BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Sixteen officials from the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) who were arrested for alleged abuse of K4.6 million Covid-19 funds have been denied bail.
Lilongwe Chief Resident Magistrate, Patrick Chirwa, said the State needs more time to investigate the matter.
The court has given the State seven more days to investigate the matter.
The State asked to have the suspects remanded for 14 days so that it concludes the investigations arguing that the matter in question is a serious and complex case.
The officials who were arrested this week for allegedly abusing part of K6.2 billion Covid-19 money.
The officials include the department’s deputy director Mr Fyawupi Mwafongo, DODMA Public Relations Officer Mr Chipiliro Khamula and 14 others.
The K6.2 billion Covid-19 money caused a storm after it was learnt that over 80 per cent of the money went into allowances for officials instead of fighting Covid-19.
Mwafongo has been charged with abuse of office where particulars states that he authorized an amount over K4 million to be used as allowances and when asked he failed to account for it.
The second charge is theft by public servant and this applies on all the 16 where the particulars are that the 16 received allowances worth k4, 250, 000 for attending a meeting in Mponera at Linde motel for two days and failed to account for it.
