UTM plays down failure  to pay 141 poll monitors

One of the country’s major parties, UTM is playing down reports that it has failed to pay K1141 000 to poll monitors in the May elections.

Spokesperson for the party Joseph Chidanti Malunga said there was a technical problem which arose when the party wanted to pay the 141 election monitors in Dowa.

“In some cases, the names that were submitted to us did not match those that were claiming the allowances. But we are now sorting out the issue, we will pay them very soon,” said Malunga.

Harrison Njobvu, one of the monitors said they had agreed to be paid K10 000 in allowances for the job during the highly contested May 21 tripartite election.

“We all love the party but some officials are not helping us,” said Njobvu.

The Malawi Electoral Commission declared President Peter Mutharika as winner having amassed 1.9 million votes with Malawi Congress Party’s Lazarus Chakwera getting 1.6 million and UTM’s Saulos Chilima getting 1.1 million.

Chakwera and Chilima are challenging the presidential poll result in the Constitutional Court.