Chakwera: Those to be found to have abused their funds will be punished
* As President Chakwera calls on controlling officers in various ministries to account for K6.2bln that Treasury disbursed
* Summons to meet presidential taskforce in 48 hours to account how the money was used
* Warns to punish any cluster that either fails to account for the money it received
* First consignment of AstraZeneca vaccine expected by month end
By Duncan Mlanjira
President Lazarus Chakwera disclosed on Sunday that the government has received a total of close to K2.2 billion from well-wishers in the fight against the second wave of the COVID-19 that has hit the country hard since early January.
COVID-19 vaccine expected in month end
The well-wishers have responded to the appeal for assistance he made when Chakwera declared the State of Disaster.
The donors include Malawi Red Cross Society at K1.6 billion; K112 million from Standard Bank; K100 million from Airtel Malawi; K90 million from Press Trust; K50 million each from Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority, National Bank and First Capital Bank;
Nyasa Manufacturing Company contributed K25 million; Oxfam K22 million; Illovo K20 million; Lilongwe Water Board (K15.6 million); K15.5 million from an anonymous donor; K11.2 million from Puma; Simama Group of Companies (K8 million); Sunbird Hotels K7 million and K2 million from ADMARC.
Meanwhile, the President warned all controlling officers to account for every tambala they will receive from the extra funding.
Coronavirus alert
He disclosed that there are controlling officers in various ministries and heads of various clusters of the COVID-19 response team who have not submitted reports of how they spent their allocation of the K6.2 billion that Treasury disbursed to them last year.
“This is completely unacceptable,” he said when his public address on Sunday. “I have therefore summoned all controlling officers and heads of clusters to meet my Taskforce in 48 hours and account for how they used that money.
“Make no mistake — any cluster that either fails to account for the money it received or is found to have abused their funds is a cluster in which heads will roll.”
He applauded stakeholders that have partnered with government in this fight, saying when he asked for the financial assistance two weeks ago he had pledged that every kwacha of COVID-19 funds will have to be accounted for.
Coronavirus alert
Chakwera also announced that prior to the public address he and other presidents across Africa concluded a two-day deliberations at the 34th Ordinary Session of the African Union.
He said the outgoing AU Chairperson, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, gave a report on how AU partners are working through the COVAX initiative and the work of the AU’s Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) in facilitating Malawi’s access to the first consignment of COVID-19 vaccines.
He reminded the nation that the first consignment will be arriving in the country this month end that consists of 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
This, he said, is enough to cover 750,000 people as the authorities await additional consignments to vaccinate 3.8 million people as matter of urgency.
Coronavirus alert
“Presently, there are at least eight different types of vaccine available around the world for protection against COVID-19. Seven of these vaccines, including the AstraZeneca vaccine, require two doses.
“So the type of vaccine we will receive here requires the same number of shots as most of the other types.
“A second area of interest is the efficacy of the vaccine. Different vaccine types vary in their efficacy, but all of them have an efficacy level above 50%.
“The vaccine type coming to Malawi has an average of 60 to 70% efficacy. Although this is a lower efficacy than that of five of the other vaccine types, it is high enough to save millions of lives.
“In fact, since our only goal is to save lives, the AstraZeneca vaccine has one great advantage over the other vaccines in this regard. At four dollars a dose, it costs two and a half times less than the two other vaccine types.
Coronavirus alert
“[This is] almost four times less than a third type, five times less than a fourth type, and eight times less than a fifth type.
“Additionally, to ensure safety, we have steered clear of five vaccine types that are not yet approved by either the World Health Organization (WHO), or the European Medicines Agency (EMA), or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
Notwithstanding, Chakwera said, the health authorities will continue monitoring the vaccine options as they are being developed, so that they are ready to secure what is best for the country.
“Considering the time it will take to roll out the vaccine across Malawi and considering the logistical and cultural challenges we must overcome to do so, our best weapon against COVID-19 remains prevention.
Coronavirus alert
“We need to stop healthy people from getting infected, because the rate of infection is still too high.”
He disclosed that over the course of this past week, the country registered 2,987 new infections out of the 13,448 tests that were done across the country.
“This represents a 22% positivity rate, and while it is lower than the 29% positivity rate from last week, it is still higher than the 0 to 5% rate we are aiming for.
“This is why we have decided to maintain the preventive measures that are in place to stop the spread of infections, including keeping schools closed for another two weeks.
Sunday’s situation report
“Admittedly, some of the preventive measures you are having to endure are difficult, because they are disruptive to your social life, your professional life, your academic life, and your economic life.
“But the continued drop in the rate of infection means that your compliance with the measures is making a difference, so let us keep running this race until we reach the finish line of zero infections.”
He reminded the public that the hardship of preventing new infections is better than the hardship of treating them and thus the need to continue the State of National Disaster.
“After all, the burden our healthcare workers and health facilities are carrying is already enormous, so whenever you protect yourself and your family from getting infected, you lessen the pressure that our health system is under.
Coronavirus alert: Respect to health workers
“I applaud our health workers for the gallant fight they are putting up, and I call on all citizens to treat every health care worker with respect and special appreciation.
“In fact, whenever you meet a health care worker, you should shower them with praise and thanks, not insults and ingratitude.
“For my part, my Taskforce on Covid-19 will continue to give our health facilities as much support as we can to make the work of these heroes more meaningful.”
He went on to disclose that the government have increased the bed capacity in our treatment centers to 1,100, and has deployed 1,200 new healthcare workers to those centers.
Coronavirus Alert
“We have also dispatched additional protective gear for our frontline workers, including 270,000 face masks, 140,000 N95 masks, over 7,000 disposable gowns and 125,000 bottles of hand sanitizer.
“This is all on top of the work we are doing to strengthen the testing capacity of our testing sites, to which we have just distributed 20,000 antigen rapid tests and to aide in the diagnostics, the digital x-ray machines in Balaka and at Mzuzu Central Hospital are back in use after the repairs we effected.
“There is so much more that our team is doing to contain the situation than I can say in a single address,” the President said.
Coronavirus alert