The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has demanded the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 to make it public all expenditure reports that the 13 Covid-19 clusters submitted to the Taskforce weeks ago.

Addressing a media briefing in Lilongwe, members of the Coalition said much as Malawians are waiting for completion of the forensic audit in a month period, there is need to disclose what is in the reports as a starting point of ensuring transparency and accountability.

According to HRDC National Coordinator Luke Tembo, there is also need to be a declaration of what each member of the Taskforce received as allowances.

“What we are calling upon as HRDC is to a total accountability on the funds, we have received a number of tip offs from Malawians alleging that the monies were misused.

“We also demand the Taskforce to disclose to Malawians allowances each member of Taskforce has been receiving,” said Tembo.

He threatened that the Coalition will mobilise Malawians to the streets if government fails to comes out clearly on the K6.2 billion Covid-19 funds expenditure.

Tembo added that the Coalition will launch a payback campaign aiming at ensuring that the said misused funds are paid back to Malawians.

“We are calling upon the audit in one month and upon receiving the audit, we are going to launch a Payback our Money Campaign should the audit find our that there has been abuse of funds.

“We are also calling upon the government to release the reports that all the Clusters submitted during the last meeting that the Taskforce had with the Clusters,” demanded the HRDC National Coordinator.

HRDC has since given Leader of Opposition in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa 48 hours to pay back allowances he sourced from the Taskforce.