Fresh Malawi army probe, HTD involved in cashgate affair

There are fresh cashgate corruption scandal fears in Malawi Defence Force (MDF) and the law enforcement agencies are also probing HTD Limited on leads that they have been enjoying the favours of the government pay-out thought to have been made against dubious transactions – cashgate – where they were involve in illegal externalization of forex and money laundering.

In the fresh cashgate fears at MDF, the military faces an audit query over their recent advertised tender had two opening dates.

In the advertisement placed in newspapers; ‘Supply of goods and services’, the army indicated the opening of the tender was 8 June, 2015 but on tender documents it indicated 15 June, 2015.

The closing time indicated on the documents 14 hours but the tenders closed at 13:45hours.

A procurement analyst said such an anomally was supposed to be clarified by communicating through the media, issuing an addendum to all bidders in emails according to Public Procurement Act 2003.

Further, the army in the tender issued a cash receipt bought from a stationary shop and stamped it Malawi Defence Forces without ny official headed letter on it.

Normally, they are supposed to issue a receipt from General Receipt book whose money goes into Account Number One of Malawi government.

The receipts comes in three copies; white copy is retained, red copy is given to the client and another copy remains in the book.

More rot is on HTD Limited which is alleged to have received payments from Malawi Defence Force without supplying items.

HTD received, on 20th August 2013, two payments from MDF vote amounting to K 331,975,000 and K 300,000,000 through cheque numbers 210600 and 210601, respectively.

Closer examination of the cheques reveals that the two cheques were issued same day and on consecutive cheque leaves. This is one characteristic of cash gate cheques and an audit query.

HTD registered owners are: Anawar Mahomed Sidik and Abudul Haris Mahomed Sidik, both British Passport holders.

They hold bank accounts at 5 different commercial banks. Two of the Banks are frequently ususpected of being used for forex externalization mostly to Iveco Company (RSA) Vehicle delivery Services (RSA) KIA Motors Corporation (South Korea) Red Sea Trading (Hong Kong), Guava International (UK), Reinder (Hong Kong) and Mobis Parts Middle East

Investigations have revealed that only Iveco, Guava and KIA are the suppliers of the vehicles. Vehicle Delivery Services, a division of Onelogix (Pty) Ltd is a major operator in auto-logistics throughout the Southern African region. These could be in no doubt the likely transporters of the vehicles from South Africa to Malawi.

However, documents we have seen show that invoices from KIA and Guava International are CIF inclusive to Blantyre. This means there was no need to externalize funds to different transport players as vehicle freight is already included in the supplier invoice.

In some cases, payments were made to different name from the invoice. This is despite invoice carrying correct Bank details for the supplier.

Biggest beneficiary appears to be Red Sea Trading and they are for different items. On a particular invoice they were charging for Transporting Range Rovers while at another point it was just described as furniture.

Nyasa Times investigations have also revealed that Red Sea trade in many things, however Cars are not part of their business.

But on a number of invoices, Red Sea charged thousands of US Dollars for shipping a vehicle from South Korea to Durban despite invoice from South Korea indicating CIF. Red Sea Trading further quoted HTD Limited hundreds of US Dollars for furniture for its offices.

Despite paying KIA Motors for vehicles, they seem to be also paying Reindeer Associates, based in Hong Kong, for KIA vehicles. Invoices from Reindeer Associates have CIF to Blantyre via Durban and therefore no need for HTD to pay a transporter.

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