Kamlepo Kalua won’t be silenced with money, MP challenges

Firebrand politician, Rumphi East MP Kamlepo Kalua (People’s Party-PP) has vowed that his voice cannot be silenced with money, saying he will continue with his no-holds-barred checks and balances.

Kalua told Parliament that some people claimed that he was put as one of the beneficiaries of the controversial K4 billion to 86 parliamentary constituencies to silence him.

“Some people insinuated that I have been bought off by these allocations we are talking about,” he said.

Ironically, he said, his accusers in the opposition “met to share these resources equally.”

Kalua demanded the unnamed people to apologise.

“I want them to apologise because this is not the way to go,” he said.

An outspoken and defiant Kalua said he would not be silenced.

“I am not here so that somebody can give me money to silence me! Nobody can silence me! Nobody can silence me! And when I was fighting for multiparty democracy, these were babies. Some of these people,” he said.

Kalua, who is also Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) vice chairman, promised to continue fighting for the poor.

Kalua, one of the politicians who championed democracy in the country, has been vocal on grand corruption scandal and is demanding justice for seven rotten ministers he claims were fingered in the audit report.

In the high-level fraud, millions of dollars of public money were channelled into private accounts through companies that provided the government with bills, but no services.

The forensic auditors of what was initially the K577 billion Cashgate—now reduced to K236 billion—say are disappointed that government did not curb the grand fraud 11 years after it was noted in 2005 under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) watch.

In its report of a forensic audit of the government of Malawi covering the period January 2009 to December 2014, the auditors said that the 12-year inaction, especially in procurement mischief, lack of follow ups on red flags and poor cashbook reconciliation increase the risk of.