On Monday, SOS village invited over 120 of its pre-qualified suppliers in Mzuzu for a meeting where the village announced a switch from physical to digital transactions in procurement.

Program Director for SOS Children’s Village in Mzuzu, George Kondowe, the idea is to ensure that there is no corruption in the supply and acquisition of goods and services.

“We have communicated to them (suppliers) that come 2020, we’re rolling out online transaction from bidding to making payments.The idea is to minimize physical contact where business people are asked to pay 10 percent kickbacks by some of our officers,” said Kondowe.

Financial Controller for SOS, Maggie Mchawi, observed that the organization spends half of its budget in procurement of materials hence the need to conduct business in a transparent manner.

“We are striving to deal our clients in a transparent manner. We use donor funding and it wouldn’t be a good thing to misuse this money because it is meant to help vulnerable children,” she said.

One of the pre-qualified SOS suppliers CANOTECH which was represented by, Albert Mhango, hailed the move by SOS Children’s Village saying business will begin to strive as some were making losses owing to 10 percent kickbacks demanded by some officials at the organisation.

SOS Children’s Village has since set up a whistle-blowing platform for alerts on fraud and corruption.

This took place when Malawi commemorated the Anti Corruption Day.