An internal audit report has revealed that a fuel card meant to keep the Lilongwe Water Board’s (LWB) Customer and Public Relations Department on the road was instead used exclusively for the personal vehicles of the department’s manager, Chisomo Chibwana.
Cables can confidently reveal .
The card, a Puma Energy facility issued through National Bank of Malawi and bearing the serial number 60 521 702, is allocated 150 litres of fuel per month for departmental operations.
According to the audit findings, the fuel drawn on the card was not expended on operational field work. The report establishes that the card was in the sole possession of Chibwana and used only by her.
Chibwana, who serves as Customer and PR Manager, is entitled to 300 litres of fuel per month as a personal benefit attached to her position. That allocation is separate from the department’s operational card.
The audit found that rather than drawing on her personal entitlement, she drew fuel for her private cars using the department card, effectively diverting the operational allocation to herself.
“The card is hers. The department gets nothing,” a board official familiar with the arrangement told this publication, confirming the audit’s central finding.
The audit documents the operational consequences. Officers tasked with attending to burst pipes, community meetings and customer complaints were routinely unable to deploy, as the department had no fuel.
“They can’t go anywhere,” an operations officer said. “There is no fuel for officers in that department to use. When she joined, she immediately took over the card and nobody has used it ever since.”
The report further records that Chibwana blocked efforts to allocate a dedicated vehicle to the department. When management proposed assigning a vehicle to improve operational efficiency, she argued that the PR unit was a “desk-based” department that did not require one. The vehicle was reassigned elsewhere. Without a vehicle and without fuel, the department has been rendered inactive.
The audit found that for years Chibwana failed to submit the monthly fuel usage reports mandatory for all departmental cards. No report was ever produced. Internal audit queries on the matter were ignored or met with undertakings that the reports would be delivered “soon.”
The audit report was submitted to then-Chief Executive Officer Silli Mbewe. He took no action on it.
Board officials say Mbewe sat on the findings because of his relationship with Chibwana, and that attempts to pursue the matter further were quietly shelved.
“Every time someone asks questions, they are told to back off,” a board insider said.
The practical effect is being felt most acutely in customer care, the core of the department’s mandate. With no fuel and no vehicle, the unit supposed to be on the ground explaining, reassuring and managing public concerns cannot deploy.
That failure is now compounding the current water crisis in the city. Customer engagement meetings, the forums through which the board is expected to explain supply interruptions, listen to complaints and manage public expectations, are hardly taking place. Customers continue to raise their anger at the institution’s failure to engage them, and the department mandated to answer them has neither the means nor the mobility to respond.
When contacted for comment, Chibwana hung up the phone as soon as the subject was introduced. Former CEO Silli Mbewe had not responded to questions put to him at the time of publication.
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