Malawi’s minister of education vows to deal with fraud and corruption in his department, reports Denis Mzembe
Malawi’s beleaguered Ministry of Education, reeling from a R20,7-million school contracts scam, poor examination results and strikes by disgruntled teachers, has been hit by another multimillion scandal.
Government auditors have uncovered a R13-million scandal over the supply of free education materials. Implicated are stores officers who cannot account for about R9,2-million worth of materials and suppliers who got paid about R1,6-million for delivering nothing.
Over R1,1-million worth of materials disappeared while being transferred between warehouses. Minister of Education George Mtafu said the culprits will have to face the law. “We are trying to get clearance from authorities,” said Mtafu. “These are materials for free primary school education which must be seen to succeed. Even donors give us money for the programme on trust.”
But Auditor General Henry Kalongonda believes the ministry should also tighten controls on its systems to make it more difficult for the corrupt to plunder its resources. It may not be easy to bring the culprits to book despite the many costly institutions the government has put in place to deal with fraud.
Having uncovered the scam, the auditor general said he expects the Ministry of Education, and not his own office, to report the scandal to law enforcement authorities. Kalongonda says: “The complainant is the controlling officer. We have always urged controlling officers to take appropriate action when a loss occurs and we will be ready to support them with evidence.”
But Kalongonda’s reasoning did not impress Director of Public Prosecutions Fahad Assani, who said the auditor general should not wait for the Ministry of Education to complain to the law enforcers.
Secretary for Education Thouse O’Dala said he first heard about the issue from the Anti-Corruption Bureau in May before receiving the auditor general’s report: “We are taking the whole matter very seriously and those involved in the losses will be disciplined accordingly.”
The auditor general’s report says: “The system of internal checks and control is nonexistent or has totally collapsed, both at the supplies unit and Ministry of Education headquarters.”
It accuses seven stores officers of “being responsible for missing stores items” worth over R9-million.
The report also blames eight stores officers for the loss of free primary school materials worth over R1-million as they were being transferred between warehouses. “An examination of the transactions disclosed that some materials which were transferred from one warehouse to another did not reach the destinations as recorded on the forms.” Last year, 16 people, including teachers, were arrested for allegedly trading in textbooks donated by the Canadian International Development Agency (Cida) for free primary education.
The arrests followed a protest to the government by Cida director Grant Hawes after discovering that the books they donated, worth R40-million, were being sold in bookstores. Three suppliers have been mentioned in the report for being paid for materials that were never delivered and seven for being paid more than the value of the materials delivered. “The system of effecting payments for the school materials was weak, and as a result, the government paid R1,6-million to suppliers for materials not delivered,” the report says. It also claims that other suppliers wrongly claimed arrears after adjusting prices on already delivered materials.
But Yusuf Bobat, owner of Bobco, which, the report alleges, was paid R255 000 after delivering goods valued at R24 000, said the payments were cleared through the office of the auditor general.
“I was paid as and when I delivered the supplies,” said Bobat, who supplied school desks. Hussein Mussa of Sethsons, whose payment of over R333 000 in arrears is being questioned by the auditor general’s report, said the arrears were paid to compensate for the devaluation that happened while the ministry was dilly-dallying with payment for materials already supplied.
“We were never paid our money, and the kwacha devalued and we had to get the difference,” said Mussa, whose company received R330 000 in arrears.
Ntafu said the entire supplies unit of his ministry had been carefully scrutinised following the report.
“The requirement now is that for anyone to get a tender, he or she must be registered and have a physical address to show that he or she is a bona fide trader. And they should also be prepared to be inspected, and there will be no seed money paid in advance.”
Last year, several building contractors, most of them affiliated to the ruling party, the United Democratic Front, were arrested for being paid millions by the Ministry of Education in the guise of constructing schools which still do not exist.
Most of the schools that were to be built and the materials that have been stolen were meant for the free primary shool education programme which started in 1994.
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, November 2001.