K30m missing from Karonga District Council: No June salaries for workers
Over K30 million has gone missing from the Karonga District Councils bank account a development that have affected operations in all government sectors in the district such as hospital, water, education and labour.
Confirming the development District Commissioner Emmanuel Bambe told Nyasa Times that they were surprised seeing that the whole June funding is not in the account when they wanted to use the money for different developments in the district
“As you know that now we are using one account which is credit ceiling account for the district and what the bank is saying is that the money has been over drawn but no sector has used the June funding,” says Bambe.
He says as a result most of activities in the sectors have stalled and workers remain unpaid.
“Of all the sectors I am worried with the hospital sector because as I am telling you now ESCOM and Water Board people were at the hospital to disconnect their services but upon pleading with them they have given us two weeks to sort out the bill,” says Bambe.
He says they are using some money which is not for the budget to help the hospital only “because it is the most important entity.”
The DC says they have now involved auditors to look into the matter saying there is a problem between the office and the bank on how the money has been over drawn as nobody did the withdraw.
“We are requesting bank statements from the bank to see how the money has been used and now we have also involved the auditors from the local Government Committee to help us on how the money has been misplaced as the investigation is going on.” says Bambe.
He then pleaded with the workers to remain patient until they sort out the mess saying although it will take long but things will be normal soon because the auditors are doing their job.
But some workers at the District Hospital and at the District Commissioner are planning to stop working if they will not receive their salaries until 15 July.
“We cant really believe what they are saying because it is not only June they have taken long to give us our salaries, the month of May we receive our salaries on 15 June and now the June salaries they said we will receive at 4 July but now we are hearing nothing from them, what do they think we are eating,” complained the workers.
Some of them say if the issue remains unresolved by 15 July, they will take all their belongings and will sleep at the District Commission Office as their land lords have already issued them eviction warning should they fail to pay rent by the date.
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