Malawi President Banda implicated in cash-gate, CCJP tells PAC
Malawi’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) has presented information to the country’s Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) alleging that President Joyce Banda is part and parcel of the cash-gate scam.
Secretary of CCJP in Lilongwe Archdiocese Peter Chinoko, who presented the information to the committee on Thursday said the said facts that implicates President Banda was from people of goodwill given to the church.
Chinoko said he was actually called by the committee to give the information.
He said the Catholic Church has information to the effect that the genesis of cash-gate was lack of enough financial resources to bankroll political campaign for the ruling People’s Party (PP) as the country goes to tripartite elections next year.
Chinoko alleged that President Banda complained of “being milked” in referenced to the fact that she was spending a lot of money alone on the party.
He disclosed that the President organized an inner circle meeting where a resolution was made to appoint new Budget Director Paul Mphwiyo (gun shot survivor) to facilitate a fund raising drive from government confers that will ease her as an individual in the funding of party activities.
Chinoko told PAC that one of Mphwiyo’s first assignments was to contact several other senior civil servants, including one from the central bank, from the Accountant General’s office, from the Ministry of Tourism and a senior ruling party official.
He said the starting point following this meeting was to siphon K1 billion from the government confers an undertaking which was done successfully.
Chinoko explained that although initially the central bank official involved was proving difficult he had to give in following a personal request from President Banda and subsequent pressure from her office.
“Two weeks later, according to the information we have, the powerful forces asked Mphwiyo in the Ministry of Finance to source K120 million from the system to which the President got only K20 million,” Chiwoko said in his presentation.
He added: “We understand that the President was annoyed with this and did not hide the same when she later summoned some three members of her inner circle. We are informed that the three then went to Mphwiyo where they demanded an explanation as there had been reports that he had kept K100 million for himself.”+
Chinoko said according to the information with the Church, Mphwiyo was somewhat drunk on the day and threatened that if he is to pressurized more, he would report that some people were abusing state funds.
He said this was reported back to President Banda who retorted that “…Mnyamata ameneyu atiyalutsa.”
Chinoko further said that before Mphwiyo was shot there was evident fall out between the President’s inner circle and the Budget Director.
In his presentation, Chinoko also explained how one contractor was paid K5 billion as damages for breach of contract after accepting to release half of the amount for PP financing.
He also touched on the contract between Malawi Government and Veventis Risk Solutions, a London-based company which President Banda wanted to dubiously engage to review the Anti-Corruption Bureau Act and Strategy at a cost of K700 million.
The deal was frustrated after ACB rejected to engage the company after observing that the ACB Act and Strategy were already reviewed.
PAC has since requested Chinoko to make his submission on behalf of CCJP in writing.
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