MEC comes with guns blazing:  Hits out at Malawians accusing it of corruption

 …All our funds are under Chief Elections Officer

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has hit back at claims that its Chief Elections Officer account was used for questionable payments.

This follows the leaking of a cheque showing that Treasury deposited K4 billion into the account a day before the elections.

Other revelations indicate that MEC made a K2.4 million payment to George Yona using the account a day after the elections.

In a statement on Monday, MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the account is legitimate and not a personal account of MEC CEO Sammy Alfandika.

According to Mwafulirwa, the account has seven signatories with various levels of authority or mandate and was opened in 2014 with authorization of the Secretary to the Treasury to facilitate payments during elections exercises.

“The account has been operational since then and has always been audited by the Auditor General in line with Government systems.

“The operational procedure is that all government funding goes into the MEC IFMIS account domiciled at the Southern Region Treasury Cashier. For money to be transferred into the Chief Elections Officer account at FDH Bank, MEC writes the Accountant General for authorization justifying the amount and also the purpose and the Accountant General gives a “No objection” when he is satisfied with the reasons provided,” Mwafulirwa said.

On the K4 billion payout, Mwafulirwa said the amount was duly authorized by the Accountant General.

He noted that Treasury also transferred K8.5 billion to the same account in March and the Commission is also in the process of transferring K1.2 billion into the “Chief Elections Officer” account to facilitate the payments of other outstanding electoral expenses such as hiring of trucks for polling exercise and field staff allowances.

On the payment to Mr. Yona, Mwafulirwa said he was engaged as a cashier to make several payments for polling workers in Ntchisi.

“There were many government cashiers that MEC deployed to pay polling staff throughout the country during the polling exercise. The Commission requested the Accountant General to assist with “Accounting Staff to assist in the task of paying polling staff. In a bid to avoid movement of huge sums of cash, cheques were drawn in the names of such staff so that they could cash and pay where they were assigned,” Mwafulirwa said.