DPP should be the least to talk about corruption

Malawians still have fresh memories of events from November 7, 2013 when several donor nations released a Press statement in which they jointly announced that they were withholding aid to Malawi in reaction to a growing scandal over government graft known as Cashgate, which resulted in the looting of more than $250 million from government coffers.

They did this under the umbrella tag of Common Approach to Budget Support (CABS) following their meeting which they held in Lilongwe.

Mutharika on campaign meetings

Announcing the move during its first review meeting of the 2013-2014 budget, the funding group said it had decided to delay its aid to Malawi after its loss of confidence in the government’s financial system.

Quoting Sarah Sanyahumbi the co-chair of the CABS group and the then head of Department for International Development (DFID) in Malawi.

“It is clear from what we already know, even though investigations are ongoing, that there are serious weaknesses in the government’s financial systems which allowed [what] we call Cashgate to actually happen. So we have seen serious weaknesses which have enabled people to take money out of the government system.

“While that is the case, you know the donors cannot responsibly continue to put money into government systems. So at the moment, while the investigations are going on, we have delayed any funding which was planned to go into the government system,” she said.

Despite the focus on events from 2013 only, donors had looked back to several years of Democratic Progressive Party under Bingu wa Mutharika. An audit undertaken revealed that the DPP under Bingu oversaw a plunder of public resources close to K577 billion.

When Peter Mutharika assumed power in 2014 succeeding Joyce Banda, the wanton plunder continued and most of the sins of that period are coming to the fore right now.

It is therefore surprising to note that Peter Mutharika has ‘resurrected’ with a horde of lies and unnecessary demands towards President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera.

Last Saturday, Mutharika went to town on the Tonse administration accusing President Chakwera of failing to run the country’s economy. He went on to call for a referendum due to what he said was rampant corruption.

Sadly, he never offered any tangible solutions or alternatives to what he thinks are governance anomalies.

People already know that Mutharika cannot offer economic solutions to the current problems because it was his government which created these problems through daylight robbery which was happening then.

Mutharika should stop giving false hope to Malawians to think he can run state affairs amidst global economic problems.

He is not the right person to talk about corruption and yet DPP presided over K577 billion theft.

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