During his seventh national address on Covid, President Lazarus Chakwera projected that it would take a month for independent auditors to finalise their work on assessing the distribution and usage of covid funds.

This follows after Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Zanga-Zanga Chikhosi confirmed that controlling officers failed to provide expenditure reports to the Presidential Taskforce.

16 officials from the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) that were arrested recently for allegedly misusing part of the K6.2 billion meant for Covid, have been denied bail.

The Lilongwe Magistrate Court, under Chief Resident Magistrate Patrick Chirwa, said there was a need to give the State time to investigate the issue, hence no bail for at least the next 7 days. “The State has managed to satisfy this court that there was not enough time to do investigations. I grant seven days to push their investigations,” said Chirwa in his ruling.