BLANTYRE, Oct 11, 2008 (AFP) - Malawi has suspended extra monthly payments to its 38,000 civil servants with the HIV virus, a government official said Saturday, citing "gross abuse" of the programme in the AIDS-ravaged country.
"The suspension is due to gross abuse of the facility," Mary Shaba, principal secretary for nutrition, HIV and AIDS in the president's office, told AFP.
She said workers were claiming to be HIV positive in order to cash in on the payments of 35 dollars (26 euros).
"Some people who are not HIV positive have been cheating to access the facility," she said.
The payments were a workplace programme aimed at improving nutrition to allow "people to respond to treatment quickly," Shaba said.
She said the government would review the programme, which began in 2007, and seek to allow only those eligible to receive the cash.
Malawi has 120,000 public servants whose monthly salaries average 70 dollars. Some 38,000 of those workers are HIV positive.
Many Malawians are unable to meet their nutritional requirements, equivalent to 40 dollars annually.
Official estimates indicate that around 14 percent of Malawi's 12 million population is HIV positive.
The pandemic has cut life expectancy in Malawi to 36. Some 85,000 people die of AIDS-related illness every year.
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