Under pressure MP Bisnowaty says will grade roads

Under pressure from his constituents after revelations of inaction on two budgets Constituency Development Fund,  Lilongwe City Centre Parliamentarian, David  Bisnowaty says he  wants to use the money to grade roads.

In a written response to Nyasa Times, Bisnowaty could not say  the reason why for three years he has failed to use the funds in the Constituency Development Fund (CDF)  bucket to develop his area that include Areas 49, 25 and 18.

He has only 14 days to correctly use the funds before treasury recalls the fund by 30th June, 2017.

Lilongwe city Parliamentarians are located K18 million each government financial year.

“The money we have this year was earmarked for the construction of Kalambo school fence in Area 25 due to security of the school,” said Bisnowatty.

He acknowledged the fact that President Peter Mutharika already pledged to build the fence during the launch of 2017 Tree Planting season.

“Fortunately when the President visited Area 25 Kalambo School he pledged to build the fence where he provided most of the materials and workmanship and we used some money from the CDF for the quarry stones. We realized that we have to find a project that will benefit the constituency as a whole.

“We called all the chiefs and Councilors for further consultation since the year is about to end and we need to use the money. At no point did I ever ask to put the money in a suspense account because it is not possible as we all know that treasury has all the bank accounts for the city and will withdraw all the money by the end of the year if not used.”

One wonders why the MP kept his plans to use the funds for the fence under wraps and never translated them into his proposal to the City Council for funding.

Now caught with time ticking to deadline of June 30, Bisnowatty now changed tune saying his henchmen and chiefs have resorted to fix graders and water bowsers belonging to Lilongwe City Council and grade roads and refuel them.

However, one wonders why the MP could not hire running tractors and equipment from PVHO which is government arm instead of spending millions in fixing equipment that belongs to an entity.

The MP also took a swipe at the management of the LCC saying it was corrupt and inefficient, claims he failed to substantiate.

Bisnowatty is on record blaming the council for “eating” money for the City Roads being funded by the Roads Fund Administration.

The project in question is directly funded by the RFA and no money was channeled to any council in the country where the projects are taking place.

“I will make sure that after we finish this years CDF project, you will receive a full report and photos and I’m sure a lot of commendation from the community,” says the MP.

Bisnowaty told Nyasa Times that in the past few years he had been using all the allocated CDF for projects that were proposed by the community, and accused council officials of corruption which has resulted in poor and substandard delivery of service by hired contractors.

“In the past few years we have used all the CDF for projects that were proposed by the community but unfortunately we found out that we were not getting value for money and that the work done by contractors were substandard such that the life span of the projects were very short,” explained Bisnowaty who sounded perturbed by the reports.

“For example we spent a lot of money on building bridges that collapsed after the first rains. This is due to corruption involving city officials who were certifying the projects without inspection to ensure quality.”

He further accused the city council officials of smear campaign due to his political status and efforts to fight corruption within the council which he recently accused of misusing generated revenues while failing to deliver quality services.

“Being a politician, you should know that besides the fact that I am trying to fight corruption, there will be those that will fight me back as well, on political grounds but I will not be intimidated by that. At the end of the day, my success will speak for me. I will make sure that after we finish this year’s CDF project, the public should be given a full report. And I’m sure there will be a lot of commendation from the community,” added the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) MP.

Bisnowaty also accused the officials of selling one of the council’s plots at cheap price although he once, as Parliamentarian, stopped the council from selling it to an interested buyer at K37 million.

“The council officials promised the councilors will buy them a bus in return if the overturn the resolution I passed. I was in Parliament that day; of course they sold the land very cheap and used the money for salaries and not for the bus.

“I also questioned the overdraft of K200 million at FMB which is illegal under section 48 of the local Government Act, and demanded that the Director of Finance be arrested. I further questioned the non performance of director of Health for not collected the refuse for one year which I am doing myself right now.”

On poor state of roads in his constituency, he argued that the council has been failing to upgrade them as it had no money for two years to fix the grader, water bowser and to buy fuel.

“There was a consensus by all, that the best thing to do is to use the CDF money to fix the grader and water bowser, and buy fuel. In consultation with the city engineering and the CEOs office, the idea was welcomed since after we finish grading all the roads in my constituency, the city will continue using the same equipment to upgrade the rest of the roads, which will benefit the whole city.”

On the sidelines of his comments, most of his constituents commenting on our earlier story expressed concerns and dissatisfaction to his few years as an MP.

Others used unprintable words as show of their anger.

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