Dausi refutes Chakwera’s K1 trillion claim of DPP corruption: ‘Mere political tantrums’

The governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has denied claims by Malawi Congress Party (MCP) presidential candidate that it has been thieving public resources amounting to K1 trillion in the five years President Peter Mutharika has been in power.

Chakwera has been labelling the DPP top leadership as “thieves” during his campaign rallies, saying all they have succeeded is wrongful self enrichment and failing on service delivery.

But DPP spokesman Nicholous Dausi, who is also Minister of Homeland Security, dismissed Chakwera’s claims as “unsubstantiated.”

Dausi said Chakwera was simply making “mere political tantrums” in hope of winning votes.

“The claims are baseless, unfounded and simply false,” said Dausi.

“The reason is because they are now in a partnership with a PP Cashgate specialist. We all know that the people that stole the government’s money were for PP. Chakwera knows that he cannot clear the record of those he is in partnership with,” he said.

“We all know the people at the helm of corruption are those in PP; unfortunately, he cannot clear the name of the people he is in a partnership with on a political podium. He cannot accuse us just because he wants to gain political momentum,” Dausi added.

But MCP secretary general Eisenhower Mkaka backed Chakwera said the claims are well founded, saying there has been abuse of billions of kwacha in parastatals in the five years of DPP in power.

During the political campaign meetings, Chakwera is flashing a red card referees use to enforce discipline during football matches. He said the red card is a marching order against President Mutharika, accusing him and his DPP for failure to keep its manifesto promise.

Standing on a ‘Chakwera Hi 5’ slogan, the MCP presidential hopeful said his administration would strive to provide servant leadership, promise unity, prosperity, rule of law and end corruption.

Mutharika and Chakwera have emerged as bitter rivals since the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections in which Chakwera trailed Mutharika in the presidential race.

The last known major and credible survey on possible voting patterns for the May 21 elections by Institute for Public Opinion and Research (Ipor) put Mutharika neck-to-neck with Chakwera while Chilima was not far off in third. The survey was conducted when Chilima’s UTM Party was barely two months old.