Minister Ndau visits Macra after report on financial scandal: Malawi regulator embark on ‘witchunt’

Newly appointed Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Malison Ndau, on Tuesday visited Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra)  following Nyasa Times expose on the financial irregularities happening at the institution.

Nyasa Times carried out an expose on how the organization has been turned into a gold mine for cabinet ministers, DPP cronies and government officials.

Ndau  called on the executive management to apply stringent strategies to overcome emerging challenges.

He said the visit to Macra was part of his familiarisation tour of establishments under his jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Macra bosses are panicking following the  expose and they have intensified a hunt for those ‘leaking’ sensitive information.

Insiders confided in Nyasa Times that Macra Director General Godfrey Itaye and Board Chairman Mervis Mangulenje were fuming on Monday after the report.

“I can confirm that we are now in a police state, people are being watched who they are talking to and phones and emails are being monitored because of the story that came out on Nyasa Times. They are doing this because that story is true and there is more rot happening here,” said Nyasa Times impeccable source.

The source said Itaye and Mangulenje who now works as a member of the executive management have been using a ‘divide and rule’ system among staff members in order to find information.

“It’s really scary,” said the source.

But Nyasa Times  can assure the nation that we have the information of what is going on at Macra and policing the employees will yield nothing.

We are currently verifying some more damning information on how millions of kwachas of tax-payers money are being fleeced from Macra.

Among other issues, Nyasa Times reported that Macra paid one Mayeso Chipyoza a cool K20 million which was meant to be a donation to cultural group of Mulhakho wa Ahlomwe in November 2015.

Soon after our expose’ Ministry of Information officials and Macra management which included some board members were running up and down trying to manufacture ‘evidence’ which was meant to ‘normalise’ the pay out.

Our investigation have revealed that the money which was paid to Chipyoza through National Bank transfer did not reach the intended beneficiary, Mulhakho wa Ahlomwe which was holding its annual celebrations on November 8, 2015. Chipyoza was paid the money on November 6, 2015.

Macra finance people described the payment to Chipyoza as ‘salaries’ in their bank transmission instructions which we have seen.

In their ‘wisdom’, Macra and Ministry of Information officials concocted documents to claim that the K20 million payment to Chipyoza was actually for the job he did by erecting billboards.

But they forgot to change the information at the bank, which up until today, shows that the K20 million which was paid to Chipyoza was for Macra salaries.

Now Chipyoza is not an employee of Macra to collect salaries on behalf of his colleagues and indeed as our investigations revealed, Macra salaries does not amount to K20 million in a month for an organization of a head count of more than 80 people.

We also found out that Macra wage bill is in the ranges of around K80 to K95 million a month and not K20 million. We also found out that Macra employees got their salaries on or around 23 to 27th November 2015, they did not get their salaries on November 6, 2015 as the bank transmission report indicates.