By Mickah Raharisoa & Haja Nirina
“The Tosika Fameno aid distribution was discriminatory. Many people complained of being ignored.” This is how Nivo Raharimalala, from Antanimasaja, sums up her memories of these months with the pandemic. In Boeny, some local authorities are accused of corruption in the allocation of grants from the State that are the Tosika Fameno. “I believe that the local authorities do not take this pandemic seriously. They use it to enrich themselves at our expense, and use the grants for the poorest”, Albet Zara, a Mahajanga Be resident says. The washerwomen are raising their voices at the CRCO of Mahajanga: “We are tired. We have been walking back and forth at least five times, not to mention all the money we have to pay to register and receive subsidies. We waste our time going back and forth to the fokontany office, to the stadium and to all these places where we are asked to go !”
The head of the Mahajanga CRCO, the Préfet and Civil Administrator Lahiniaina Fitiavana Ravelomanahy explains that these organized manipulations by fokontany officials are quite common : “I would like to remind you that out of the 30,000 people who registered, 7,000 people could not be taken care of by the World Food Program (WFP). In the digitalised list of beneficiaries, the names of the most vulnerable families were not included. Moreover, among those who had resources, some lied about their financial situation in order to fool the officials.”
In the waiting line, some mothers are complaining: “We should have had our shares yesterday. Other Fokontany have surpassed us. We don’t even know if we will be able to be received this afternoon,” a mother from Mahavoky laments. And yet, the instruction from the CRCO is clear : the CRCO chief had gathered the different officials so that they could organize the Tosika Fameno aid distributions in one hour.
Another situation that raised people’s misunderstanding was the telephone numbers they were asked to provide in order to transfer the subsidies. Those who did not have a cell phone had to buy phone chips. Among those who had a cell phone, some were still unable to receive the transfer by mobile and had to buy other phone chips. And finally, those who did not have telephones and could not buy phone chips used the numbers of their relatives to receive their grants. “Many of the latter complained that they had not received their shares. In fact, as they used the phone numbers of other people, the latter simply took the money”, according to the Boeny CRCO Chief and the Mahajanga Préfet, Lahiniaina Fitiavana Ravelomanahy, who summarizes the complaints received from the population.
Despite these accusations and discontent, the Anti-Corruption Pole (PAC) in Mahajanga has not registered any complaints. “Since I took up my post in December 2021, no complaints have been filed regarding the management of Covid-19. The same observation applies to my colleagues who were in post in Mahajanga before me”, the Procureur of the Republic reveals. No additional information has been collected from the Anti-Corruption Office of Mahajanga.
The CRCO Chief confirmed an honest management
According to the CRCO, there is no suspicion of corruption or embezzlement of Covid-19 funds in Mahajanga. There was no budget allocated by the CCO, Lahiniaina Fitiavana Ravelomanahy reports : “Even the fuel used for travel was insufficient. Local partners either donated fuel or lent vehicles. There were no financial allocations. We made sure to be clear and transparent in the management of medicines, masks, medical equipment, disinfection”.
It is to the Committee of Vigilance for the fight against the epidemic, which takes over the CRCO, that the credit goes to have controlled the coronavirus, despite some peaks of contamination following the return of university holidaymakers. But the mobilization, we are told, continues.
