The Parliamentary Public Appointments Committee (PAC) has called for a forensic audit at Alliance Capital Limited (ACL).

PAC Chairperson Shadric Namalomba said the audit aims at establishing how K690 million Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) nomination fees were spent.

Namalomba, who speaking in Lilongwe at Parliament Building on the sidelines of an interface with MEC acting Chief Elections Officer, said PAC suspects that the funds were abused.

“They talked about an arrangement of K15 million per month which (ACL) floated to them and they rejected, which means nothing has been done.

“We do have fears as PAC that this K800 million which was due at ACL will not be paid because it wasn’t secured, it was invested,” Namalomba said.

The Committee has since given the Commission a 30-day ultimatum to furnish PAC with a detailed report on the funds.

He said: “And this money is public money, this money was the money that shadow Members of Parliament (MPs) had paid in form of nomination fees.

“There must be a forensic,  we need to understand what did they do with that money? We need to go beyond liquidation and ask questions.”

In his response, MEC acting Chief Elections Officer Harris Potani said the Commission had limited time to prepare the needed report and that it would be compiled during the given period.

“We got the communication very late, 23 days after the issuance of the letter and the Commission was busy with public hearings on review of boundaries for us to get organised within the shortest period of less than two weeks it wasn’t possible.

“So we came to ask for an extension equivalent to the period that we lost so PAC has granted us one month to prepare the presentation,” said Potani.

However, Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) suspended ACL months ago after the Central Bank revoked its license.

The Commission appeared before the Committee to answer audit queries for the 2020-2021 financial year.