UN, partners give $9.2m: Chakwera demands ‘breakdown’ of Malawi floods money

Malawi government should give the country a breakdown on how disaster response money have been spent, leader of opposition Lazarus Chakwera  has demanded.

Chakwera said in parliament that before making further adjustments and allocations to disaster funds, government should be transparent and accountable to what has been spent already.

“It’s not enough just to say we have increased funding to all flood victims,” said Chakwera reacting in support of the Midyear Budget Review, delivered on Friday by Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe.

“ First, we need to know how the money which was initially allocated has been used. Then we can begin to add more money. Otherwise where is this money going?” he added.

Chakwera,  who is also president of Malawi Congress Party (MCP), pointed out that there are reports “that relief is not reaching the vulnerable people and this is raising questions as to how the funds are being used and here we are bloating the allocations.”

He continued: “ What we need is this government to be accountable. that’s all.”

Meanwhile, Reuters report that the United Nations and its partners have allocated $9.2 million in emergency funding to save lives and and bring help to people in three districts hardest hit by floods in southern Malawi.

The money will help provide food, shelter, education, water, sanitation, agriculture and other emergency aid to more than 270,000 people affected by floods in Chikwawa, Nsanje and Phalombe districts, the world body said.

“As well as helping to feed displaced people, …the CERF funding will support re-planting, where feasible, this harvest season to ensure families who have lost everything including their crop are not food insecure until the next harvest in 2016,” UN Resident Coordinator Mia Seppo said in a statement.

The majority of the funding – $6.9 million – will come from the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which can release cash quickly after a disaster without aid agencies having to wait for donations to roll in, the statement said.

More than $2.2 million will come from the Humanitarian Window, a U.N.-run local mechanism, with donations from the UK International Development Department, the Flanders International Cooperation Agency and the Norwegian Embassy in Malawi