Umodzi Park gets covid-19 Xmas money, refuses to pay back

A powerful parliamentary committee has today questioned why the presidential taskforce on covid-19 gave K8.6 million to Umodzi Park without any service.

This is contained in the infamous K 6.2 billion audit report.

Members of the Public Accounts Committee of parliament raised the issue today when they met officials from the Department of Disaster Affairs (Dodma).

The committee asked DODMA’s controlling officer to explain how and why this amount was paid to Umodzi Park.

According to Dyce Nkhoma, Acting Risk Management Director for DoDMA the payment was an error and DoDMA regrets what happened.

He said the K8.6 million was an over payment that was paid to Umodzi Park in form of allowances, saying “this was an error”.

But the Committee has wondered why, DoDMA approved such a payment in form of allowances to Umodzi Park.

Chairperson of the Committee Shadreck Namalomba said this means the controlling officer is not in control.

But Nkhoma said after noting the error, DODMA sent a letter to Umodzi Park requesting for the money to be returned to DoDMA but Umodzi said that wasn’t possible.

He said at the time DoDMA was owing Umodzi Park K11 million so Umodzi suggested that they use the 8.6 million to cover part of the 11 million.