FOUR senior officials at the Department of Social Welfare have been suspended to pave way for investigations regarding the social cash transfer fiasco.

A source disclosed that those suspended last Friday include the department’s director Kennedy Mumba.

“Effective 21st September, the following senior officers suspended from the department of social welfare. This is to pave way for social cash transfer saga. Those suspended from the Department are director Mr Kennedy Mumba, deputy Mr Chiwele, and Mr Manzunzo Zulu and Mr Sydney Mukefuwe. A Mrs Munga has since been appointed to act as Director,” the source said.

The source further said eleven Drug Enforcement Commission and Anti-Corruption Commission officers have since last Thursday been deployed at Ministry Headquarters in Lusaka.

The government last week revealed that about K41 million meant for the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) project had not been accounted for by ZAMPOST.
According to a press statement made available by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services Press Office, the revelations translated to about 145,000 out of about 500,000 total beneficiaries. The K41 million represents about 29.7 per cent of the donor funding in the last four months. The total funding currently stands at about K552 million, of which the government funds K414 million (75 per cent), and donors K138million (25 per cent).
In addition, a total of 355,000 beneficiaries are receiving their SCT smoothly with about 71 per cent success rate currently.
The 71 per cent success rate is in line with President Edgar Lungu’s message during the opening of Parliament on September 14 in which he stated that the programme was doing well and the government is considering scaling up to 700,000 beneficiaries in 2019.

The SCT programme is a major social protection intervention by the government to continuously reduce extreme poverty in Zambia. The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services does implementation of the programme. Beneficiaries of the programme are persons identified by the ministry, aged above 65 years or individuals with severe disability. Currently, the SCT stands at K90 per household and is paid bi-monthly at K180.
Households of members with disabilities receive a double amount of K180 per month, which is K360 bi-monthly.

Payments are done through pay point managers who are from government departments mostly from the education and health ministries.
The MCDSS also engaged ZAMPOST to administer the SCT and piloting was done in Luapula and Western Provinces.