Millions of Kwacha lost in material for Lilongwe LDF projects

Millions of kwacha in building materials for school blocks at M’buka Primary School, south of Lilongwe City, have been wasted for over staying without being used since they were bought over a year ago.

Over four hundred bags of cement, several tins of paint meant for construction of two school blocks at the school funded by Local Development Fund (LDF) have expired yet the school blocks are uncompleted.

In an email response to Lilongwe News Agency (LINA), the city, through their spokesperson, Tamara Chafunya, claimed they failed to finish construction of the school blocks because of lack of enough funds because of additional blocks but she promised that work would resume soon to finish the school blocks.

“At that particular time we had on paper an indication that the funding was adequate , until the additional blocks that made us realize that there was miscalculation of the funds,” Chafunya explained.

The city did not disclose how much money they received from LDF and who miscalculated, the city or the Local Development Fund secretariat.

Approximately 30 Million Kwacha has been spent on the two school blocks, costing around 15 Million Kwacha each but still flooring, plastering and painting are some of the works not yet done.

The School Committee Chairman for M’buka Primary School, Peter Banda, explained in an interview with LINA that the community is not happy with the way the whole project was carried out.

“We were told by the city that a school block was to be built here at our school, complete with its latrines and a storeroom. A few days later, the city engineer, a Mr Khotopo came with someone and told us that he was the contractor for the project. Within a few days the contractor brought building materials in bulk even before he had built the said storeroom but told us to set aside one classroom to store the materials pushing learners to conduct classes outside, under a tree,” Banda recounts the way the project began.

The first block started being built in January, 2014 and was expected to be completed by March or early April, 2014 but over a year and half now, it is still unfinished.

“A surprise came when six months later, in June, the city people came back and told us that Government had considered building another school block at the school. They were doing this when the first block had failed to be finished within targeted period.”

They brought another contractor, the chairman said, and a school block which started in June and was supposed to be completed on 31st August, is also not finished up to now.

LDF Technical support office, which is Local Development Fund secretariat, when contacted through their Head Development Communications Unit, Booker Matemvu, asked for a questionnaire but did not respond to it despite several reminders sent to him.

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