The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has threatened to hold mass protests on 29 April 2021 in all the country’s cities should authorities fail to recover the misused and abused K6.2 billion Covid-19 funds.

The Coalition says Government has 7 days to come forward and address Malawians on how it is going to recover their taxes which were mercilessly plundered by few selfish individuals.

“From the general operations, the report shows just how rotten the government system is. What is apparent from the looting is that we are not dealing with bad apples, we are dealing with a rotten tree.

“What is worrying is that these are the same public officials that are entrusted with public funds, and not only COVID-19 funds. If there were able to loot K6.2 billion with such reckless abandon, one wonders what they do with the other public funds,” said Gift Trapence, HRDC`s chairperson.

The Coalition has also demanded for complete overhaul of the country’s Civil Service for being massively implicated in the plunder.

“There is need for an overhaul of the civil service, we are not dealing with rotten apples anymore, the tree is rotten to the core and it needs to be cut to allow for a fresh plant to grow in its place.

“Over the years, these are the same government officers that have been involved in the looting of public funds over the past decades. This is no secret,” Trapence said.

He added that responsible authorities should expedite processes of prosecuting culprits mentioned in the report.

“We demand the immediate arrest of those suspected to have abused COVID-19 funds. We are giving the government 7 days to arrest the suspected culprits and to give us an action plan on how the money will be recovered.

HRDC will mobilise Malawians to hold mass demonstrations across Malawi on April 29, 2021 if our demands are not met,” Trapence said.

The Coalition has since stressed that Malawians will not be spectators and watch as public funds are abused.