Leader of Opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa pocketed K3.6 million in Covid-19 allowances and fuel refunds.
Nankhumwa who is competing for the position of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president seat received the money between October last year and January this year for meetings of the Presidential Taskforce on Coronavirus.
According to a document Malawi24 has seen, Nankhumwa was entitled to K60,000 as daily subsistence allowance but he pocketed that amount twice for 10 days thus K120,000 for each day. The allowances amounted to K1.2 million.
He also received K257,694 on each of 12 days and 311,000 on each of six days as fuel refunds. This amounted to about K2.4 million.
Nankhumwa who was roped into the taskforce in his capacity as Leader of Opposition (LoP) uses an official car and is already entitled to fuel and house allowances. He is also usually escorted by a police officer on his engagements, which is one of the benefits as LoP.
The Leader of Opposition, in an interview with the local media, has since confirmed receiving the allowances and said he was getting the money in brown envelopes without instructions on which amount was for fuel and which one was for subsistence allowance.
He has also claimed that the revelations are politically motivated as they are coming following his press conference last week where he attacked the government over the K6.2 billion Covid-19 scandal.
The scandal has rocked the Covid-19 taskforce as there are allegations that money meant for Covid-19 fight was abused. According to reports, about K2 billion of the money was spent on allowances.
